


Retrieval

by theechosea



Series: Starling Clarity [7]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: 74th Hunger Games, 75th Hunger Games, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 3: Mockingjay, Canon-Typical Violence, Choking, District 13, Drug Side Effects, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, False Memories, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Haymitch doesn't like being sober, Heterosexual Sex, Hijacked Peeta, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Killing, Medicine, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mental Anguish, Mental Instability, POV Peeta Mellark, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rebellion, Rough Sex, Sex, Sexual Content, Side Effects
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:08:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 32,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3698552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theechosea/pseuds/theechosea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta has been rescued from the Capitol, but work to retrieve him is only just beginning. What will District 13 do other than piss off Johanna? Can Johanna and Prim help him recover from District 13's "help"? Will Katniss be able to see past what the Capitol did and find the boy behind the mutt with Johanna's assistance?</p><p>[This is where my timeline starts to deviate from canon]</p><p>[WARNINGS: it's hard to put warnings on this the way I did Aftermath. I've been trying to come up with some because I don't want to trigger people. There *are* sort of flashbacks to things that happened in Aftermath, so if there are snippets of attack, pain, torture and such they're very small because Peeta's very "fluxy" and it's from his POV. My take on his mindset might be different too most because of my personal experiences with trauma/dissociation and flashbacks brought about by PTSD]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

I don't know these people. I don't know these people.

They say I'm safe but I don't know these people. They insist; but who are they?

White walls. Grey walls. Those things I recognize.

Medical equipment. These things are familiar.

But people no.

Stay still.

Watch.

Wait.

Things don't burn me but they ache.

"Peeta," soft, breathy, relief.

That voice. A trick.

Always a trick.

Watch. Wait. Where is she? Where is threat?

I can play too. Get close before...all shaky breaths and fake happiness.

Good mutt actress waiting to strike and break me.

Not this time.

Not this time.

Hands around her throat before she can strike.

Shock on her face.

Good.

I have upper hand this time.

She gags, struggles, rolls. I'm thrown.

Strike back. She's reeling from the attack and I get her again before she has a chance to turn.

No more claws.

Not this time.

She won't hurt me. Won't hurt anyone.

No more mutt. No more pain.

No more.

Not again.

But then darkness.  


	2. Detox

Thirteen. Seven. What do you know about Seven? Thirteen doesn't exist.

It's a trick. It's a trick. She's lying. She's tricking me.

I have to get out.

 

Claws come out of the dark, climbing up onto the bed.

Glowing eyes and a mouth spitting roaches.

Then nothing. Just darkness.

 

I can hear it all around, chattering, clicking, nattering, whispering, everything, too much, overlapping, chittering, hissing, buzzing, bustling, fizzing and it won't go away. It won't go away. It's inside my skin and my teeth and crawling up my nose and down my throat. Mutt. Snow. It's inside my chest and my stomach. It's bleeding out all over. I feel hot and wet and cold and everything is heavy and yet I'm tied down so I don't float away. It doesn't make sense and there's so much noise.

 

Moving shadows flicking.

 

Prods and pokes. Familiar. I understand it.

 

No words or questions. Just the buzz and clicking. Everything blurs. Reds and blues. Brights and shadows. Itching.

 

Where is Seven? What is Thirteen? Snow? Caesar? Are you upset? Make it quiet. Destroy. Get rid of her. Where is the mutt? It's icy and my brain is melting. I feel my ears boring through my skull. Out. Out. Out.

 

I must get out.

 

#%#%#%#%#%#

 

 Everything is itchy. Can't sleep. Can't be still. Noise everywhere. It's all over the sheets and the bed crawling inside my flesh but they won't chew through the straps and let me out. Where is the fog? It's not shown up yet and I don't see him coming in with his syringe.

Oh, wait, there's the door.

It's someone different. Two. No, three.

They circle the bed. Two come to other side of my head and one stays at the foot of it.

I don't know them. Wait. One I saw before  _she_ came in.

The other two I don't know. Both have brown hair. All have gray on under their pale blue pinafores. The one I've seen before is more red in hair, but blonde too, pinched. There are nerves. Oh, there are the needles.

“We need blood,” one of the brown hairs says.

Looks exchanged. Wrist grabbed. I try to pull. Not much move though.

“Who are you?”

“You were told,” Other brown hair says.

More looks between them. I pull again. No give.

“Stay still! Do you want to bleed everywhere?”

“Where is this? You aren't the same!” Have to go. Have to go. Not safe. Not them. Not the same.  _Pop thumb. Then back in place. Grab. Throw over bed into other one, “Stay off me! You're not right!” I can undo the legs get the other hand out. There'll be more. Guards, but things fade. Unexpected._

“You didn't think we'd have measures? Have fun with that...we'll get the blood anyway.”

 


	3. Happy Fun with Dr. Keller

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Names of District 13 people here are ones I haven't given much thought to really: Keller, Brenda -- just names. I was looking for things which weren't particularly descript.

Mouth is thick. Everything is scratchy.

The door has opened and someone is coming in with something on wheels. Things chink together. They wear gray, all gray, long sleeves, long pants, short red hair. Letters on their shirt I can't read. Their movements are stiff.

“Good morning,” They say carefully, brushing down the front of their clothes, “You may not remember where you are. This is District 13. We rescued you from the Capitol,” the words seem clunky, “I brought you food,” They point to the tray, “Attendants will come in to help you eat,” They slap their feet together, spin and leave the room.

Two other people come in now. One is the same one I've seen each time so far. The other is different again and looks uneasy with their red hair and pale skin. Does no one see sun?

“Are we going to behave today?” The known one asks.

I don't say anything. I just _look_ at him.

“We-we have water and porridge for you,” the true red head says. Both of them with the gray overalls and the blue pinafores. It's so strange after the way everyone looked in the other place. The Capitol. Right, this is not the Capitol. This is District 13. That sounds odd. Why does that sound odd?

“We're not going to remove the restraints. Until we know you can be trusted to remain calm. So, Brenda will feed you,” he says.

Brenda does not look entirely happy with this arrangement but picks up the bowl and spoon and brings it to me after the other has pressed things and the bed has changed so that I'm in a sitting position. I can see the room now. It's small. There is a glass panel in front of me which has a curtain on the outside, fully drawn and other panels on this side that are partly open. Cabinets below this panel. A cupboard on this side. The door behind me to the right that's where they always come from but I can't turn enough to see all of it now or when lying down.

The porridge is a familiar consistency but it's taste is different. It seems flat. I eat though. But I can't eat much of it before I feel sick. He makes notes on his thing. Brenda is told to give me water and then they leave.

Well, I'm sitting up now. I can move a little easier my wrists in circles things pop and crackle as I do so. Same with my right ankle, my right knee, all my joints I can't get things to feel smooth; but then nothing is smooth in my head so why should my body be different?

Thirteen. Thirteen. Twelve. I remember it. I'm in Thirteen. I'm from Twelve. Why am I in Thirteen if I'm from Twelve? Thirteen. That's what doesn't fit.

My name is Peeta Mellark.

I'm from District Twelve.

I remember it. I remember saying it. In the dark to myself.

I remember screams and shrieks and banging noises.

The mutt pulling pieces out of my legs and stabbing me with them.

I need to be clearer.

I need to get it out, but it's all buzzing and chittering and leaves crackling and popping.

I'm from District Twelve.

I am a guest of the Capitol.

Remember who the real enemy is.

But this is not the Capitol.

Have I really been rescued?

 

#%#%#%#%#%#

He's back again. The one who has been here each time. The one who comes in with every group. His name is Keller I am told when I demand it. I have been told this before, I am told. Repetition of things irritates Keller. Repetition of things irritates me, like the clacking of the pen thing on the plastic thing he carries it drums through my ear and coils around my eyes so that when he scrapes his chair across the floor  _I want to crack his neck_ but I can't get out.

 “How are we feeling today, Peeta?”

“Constricted.”

“Do you remember where you are?”

In a room chained to a bed, “District Thirteen.”

“Good.”

“Thirteen was destroyed. How am I in Thirteen and not in Twelve?”

“Everyone who survived the fire bombing of Twelve is living here in Thirteen now and so are you and the others we rescued from the Capitol.”

I see her standing in the rubble. Laughing. It's a trick. Skulls cracking under feet. Laughing as planes drop bombs from the sky. Another trick. She called them in. Or is this not Thirteen? What are they doing?

“Stop looking at me like that,” he says, batting the pen against the board a few times and pursing his lips.

“How...do I know...this is Thirteen?”

He sighs, “Are any of the other districts underground?”

“I don't know.”

He looks at his board thing for a while. I find myself studying the restraints on my arms and legs, counting parts, one, two, three, one, two, three, click-click-cli-click, click-click-click-cli-cli-click. He needs a pen up his nose. Click-click. There were monkeys. The painted woman drawing on my cheek with her blood.

“--ember?”

“What do you want from me?”

“We're trying to help you,” he replies, voice flat, “You're safe here now. The venom is out of your system. That's why we needed your blood: to check.”

He expects some sort of words from me. I don't give him them.

“It's good to be able to talk to you,” he continues.

“I want to go home.”

He makes a weird noise, “District Twelve has been bombed. Only a small percentage of the population survived to come here.” Click-cli-cli-click-click. “We need you to understand these things. You're in District Thirteen.”

“So you say.”

“Unfortunately President Coin hasn't given us permission to bring you out of the room to truly show you unti--”

“Snow is the President's name.”

He pinches his nose, “Coriolanus Snow is the President of the Capitol. Alma Coin is the President of District Thirteen.” click-cli-click-cli-cli-cli-click-click.

“ _Stop. Stop! It's too much_ ,” I shake my head. He needs to be quiet. He needs to leave. There's too much in my head.

“What's too much?”

“ _You and your words. You say your things. They make no sense. Thirteen and Coins and your tricks. I've had enough of it! Go away!”_

“Peeta. It's important that we continue. You need to understand,” he stands up. More scraping.

It makes me want to scream. I think I might—do. Maybe I do. _I want his throat. He'll stop talking then. They always do._

He leaves.

 


	4. Shoemaker's Daughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of this follows the discussion in Mockingjay, but you'll see some deviation and it gets further AU from this chapter on. This also references "Farewell" that I wrote and parts of "Aftermath"

 

Door. Another visitor. Keller with his clicking?

No—the face—something--school books, leather smells, hammering?

“ _Did you see it, Guwar? It was like a sculpture, pond with fish, trees, even little people having a picnic and fishing in the grass.”_

“ _Why would you make him walk up all those steps Delly Cartwright? I thought I taught you better manners.”_

“Delly?”

Her face lights up. Happy. I've not see that on Keller or..or..Brandon? Or any of the others in and out of here.

“Yes! Peeta, it's so good to see you—I-I've been worried but they wouldn't let anyone in...how—how do you feel?”

“Terrible,” I pull on the straps, “Maybe you can tell me where we are?”

“...District Thirteen, you mean?” She takes a few steps closer. They still have me strapped. Don't want me to eat her. She looks at the walls and the fake window and steps again.

“So they say,” I pull on the straps a bit, “People keep lying to me though. I want to go home. Why aren't we home?”

“Haven't they—I know it's got to be confusing with everything that happened to you; but District Thirteen, here, that's where we're living now.”

“So...they got you too, huh?”

She shakes her head, “No...it's the truth. There was an accident and we live here now. They've taken us in...but I miss home, I do. I keep thinking about things we used to do when we were kids together. Doooo...you remember when we would do chalk drawings together?” Scratching houses, trees, cat, sun, big boots nearby laughing, goat, cow, cloud, “You would make different animals?”

“Pig. Cat.” Big deal. Root out the lies, “Accident. You said there was an accident?” They've said other words. Maybe she's not real.

She looks uncomfortable. This is a face I've seen on the others, “Yes. It was bad. Ve-very bad. No one could stay. That's...why we had to come here,” she takes a step closer, reaching for my hand where it's still in the cuff, “but once-once you're better and can come see everything you'll really like it here. There's food every day, safe...safe place to sleep and...and...clothes, and school is differ—better, much more interesting.”

School. Great.

“Peeta,” she puts her hand on my hand. It feels warm.

“Why did they send _you_ in and not my parents or—or I have brothers—why not them?”

She grips my hand tightly, and her voice catches, “They coul—they can't. Not everyone made it to Thirteen. Only—only about a thousand of us...we're trying to find a new way to live here. You know, once you're feeling better they can probably use a baker.”

_Useless. Can't even leave you to watch the oven._

“Do you remember when your Dad use-used to show us how to make those dough boys and we—we would...”

Burning. Planes dropping bombs. I see her cackling in the flames as they burn around her.

“Was it a fire?”

“Yes,” she says softly.

“Twelve burned down,” Bombs. Bombs cause fire. Her grip tightens on my hand, “Twelve was destroyed because of her,” laughing in the flames, braid whipping in the wind, “because of Katniss.”

She releases my hand, “No. No, that's not...” she's looking around as though the window can help her. _Does it have writing on it that I can't see? Is Katniss out there signing things to her?_

“ _She's telling you to say these things isn't she? All these lies?”_

“No, Peeta! That's not true either!”

I can't reach her. She has to understand. She's not safe.

“No! She's not true! That's not her real face! She's a mutt! She'll show you! She'll show it to you when you think you're safe! Let me out!”

The door opens and people come in and take her out.

“I'll show you! You can't trust her, Delly! Look what happened to me!”

Keller comes in then with two others on either side.

“Where did you take her? You can't let her get hold of her-- _She's going to go back out there and who knows where Katniss is. If she's not just watching right out there. Toying with them. Toying with everyone. But it's just a matter of time before the daggers and claws come out and everything else is burning down._ Twelve is already gone and you've got her right in here. _It's all wrong._ It's all wrong. _It's all wrong._ ”

“You need to be apart so that you can calm down,” Keller responds.

“So, she can fill her with more lies?”

“No,” Keller says, “Delly was here to help you just as we are. To help you regain--”

“I don't—just let me out of these things! I don't want you in here with your clicking and your— _your face. Why don't you just let the mutt in here and we'll sort it all out and it'll be done with?_ ”

“We'll just let you rest and continue this discussion later.” Keller closes the door and the room goes dark.  


	5. Keller's A/V Club

After they've taken the food tray out the one who comes in regularly comes back in. He has that annoying click-clack board. Someone stands behind him at the door.

“Keller. My name is Keller,” he waves that one away though and the door is shut, “Do you remember where you are?”

“This is not the Capitol.”

“No,” he sounds slightly appeased? Is that a word? “This is not the Capitol. This is District Thirteen. District Thirteen was not destroyed. This is not District Twelve.” He sounds like he's said these things often, “You cannot go to District Twelve. It's unsafe. Let's just move on, shall we?” He picks up a chair from one side of the room and moves it so he's sitting sideways to me. He can look at me and the fake window that I'm set up to be facing.

“Fine.” There's a very familiar feeling surfacing of want to stab him in the eye with the pen thing that he has poised over the flat thing.

“Alright,” his tone says he'd have moved on anyway. Click-click-cli-click. It's starting already, “I thought we'd try something different today. See if we can clear up some of those memory problems you've been having. Fortunately with the way things have gone. We have footage of some of the more recent sections of your life. He looks down at the board and presses some things with the pen he likes to hit against it. The window changes and smaller windows come up. I can make out little people and here and there seals and images in the squares, “Let's see. We decided this would probably be safe.”

A forest at night fills the screen. There's a group of...kids, in dark clothes, colored jackets. It's a small clearing with a fire, they seem to be talking but at first there's no sound. Boys, girls, dark hair, blonde hair, is that one me?

“ _Hey, lover boy, are you sure you want to keep on with her? I could show you a much better time,” dark haired girl crawling up me._

“ _Leave him alone, Clove. Even if he wasn't whipped you know they give us shots before we come in here.” Sarcastic tone, “Don't want a repeat of forty-three.”_

“ _No fun,” she pouts, sitting down hard on my lap, folding her arms, “Well, there are other ways,” leans in close to my face._

“ _Clove!”_

On the screen the image has changed. Same group, but the forest is different, running fast, chasing a dark blur. Camera moves to focus. It's _her_. The sound is on, can hear branches cracking, breathing hard, or am I just remembering actually what's there? Is this real? She climbs up a tree, quick, lithe, hands sure of where they're going. One of the group with me tries to shoot her with arrows misses horribly.

“Stop,” I tell her, “Don't waste them, moving target is hard to hit.” Is that me though? It doesn't sound like me.

Then the other blonde boy he starts to climb after her, but he's angry, not thinking, he's holding a sword in his hand. It means he can't get proper purchase. They're goading him on though, “Yeah, get her, Cato!”

“She'll have to come down sooner or later,” the one who looks like me says, “We should wait her out.” Alien thoughts float through, finding a way to lead her down while they're asleep, finding a way to get the bow from Glimmer while she's asleep, finding ways to help her. Why would I want to help her?

_Buzzing, choking death all around. Trying to get away._

_You have to run! What are you doing? Get away. Get away. Keep going!_

_Come on, lover boy!_

The playback freezes.

We must have known how dangerous she was. That's why we treed her. Tried to stop her.

Where were we though?

“Does this seem familiar to you?” Keller asks.

“Maybe?”

Keller makes notes on his thing, “What seems familiar?”

“I see _her_ in the tree. Hiding. That looks...like me...”

“Hm.”

“It doesn't sound like me.”

“Everyone's voice sounds different in their own head instead of outside. I don't think I sound like myself when I hear myself played back from lectures.”

Convenient. “If you're not just lying to me.”

“This was taken during the 74th Hunger Games,” he continues.

_I survived the arena._

_I am from District 12._

_I am a prisoner of the Capitol._

_Remember who the real enemy is._

“When does the real stuff start?”

“Excuse me?”

“This seems really slow today...is Lethate out sick? I think you're gonna get fired.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I don't know what _you're_ talking about so I guess we're even.”

He looks down at the pad he's holding, “I'm not—who is Lethate?”

I sit back. This has to be some sort of trick. I'm not going to say anything else. This is stupid.

How can he not know? He's trying to confuse me. Trick me into saying something...or...or...what were they...what were we doing?

She'd built a fire.

A strange choking, coughing sound.

Blood spattering on a jacket in the dark, pleading eyes.

It was a kindness.

_They were monsters._

_She's the monster. Dressed up all pretty. Trying to kill me._

“Let's try something else,” I hear him say.

Maybe now it'll make sense. Maybe now. He hasn't done much with things. That's for sure. There's been no needles. No burning. Maybe he's not allowed to touch it. Maybe that's the thing. But no. He's put me to sleep before, hasn't he? But it's not been burning. He has me confused. Damn it. And all this mess about Thirteen and not the Capitol. Just more tricks. Best to just not say anything. Just keep quiet. Keep quiet.

“Alright,” he says in my direction.

The screen changes again. It's dark, much darker. There are no trees. Rocks. It's all rocks. I feel it deep inside my chest. Danger. _Danger. Danger. Where is she? She's going to be there soon. Have to get out. Have to get out. She will come. She will come. With the claws. And the scraping._

“Well, that answers some questions...” he sounds almost sad.

But then there's the needle.

It still doesn't burn.  


	6. Uncomfortably Numb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates are going to be a little slower from now on. I still have ahead written, it's just that my writing partner sent me the new section of the actual novel we're working on and it's my turn to work on that so I have actual fiction book to work on as well again so that has to take precendence, I hope you understand. I still will keep going on this, of course, fan fiction is what I write when the novel is stuck but since I was waiting on K's section I had a lot of free time to work on fan fiction because I take the "must write every day" thing very seriously ;) 
> 
> Don't worry though, I assure you you will not be left hanging for years! Because I have other stuff ready to post. I just will be jagging it every couple of days to be safe instead of daily. 
> 
> -Echo

Tree branches try to grab me, tear at my clothing, razor sharp, slicing.

Slip down a hill, vines tangling me up, a snare hanging me upside down. Have to bend up to grab knife, cut myself free. Too late. Someone's coming.

“Oh, a pretty package! All tied up like it's a birthday.”

 

The air is a cloud of buzzing, horror, screams and yelps.

People running around in chaos.

I can't move to get them away from me.

I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I have to move.

 

Someone catches my hand.

“Oof. I'm so glad you've still got those shackles on. That would have got me right in the face.”

Lights are low. I think she has red hair, maybe brown. She's in to have me pee. The weird contraption they use so they can keep me in the bed, and then wash me down. What have they got planned that they need to bathe me?

The lights are turned up a little more as food is offered. My stomach is knotted in a ball but she persists I must eat. She tries to chit chat with me as though this will make me eat. I feel itchy but I can't move to scratch. She hums. I snap at her.

“Not very polite this morning, are we?” She chides, “Come on. You need to eat more. Dr Keller has a new medicine he wants to give you and it won't do to have an empty stomach or then you will throw up.”

“I care, why?”

“Plus, you're going to have a visitor later.”

“Dr. Keller?”

“Well, yes, but someone else too; but I'm not at liberty to say.”

“Thanks _so_ much.”

She scoops another spoonful of the gray lumpy goop and puts it in front of my mouth. I reluctantly swallow it down. This stuff never tastes right but I don't know what it is, then she offers me water. The door opens and a man comes in.

“Good morning, Dr. Keller!” she says, cheerfully.

“Nurse Melda,” he answers, “How is our patient?”

“In a foul mood,” she says, “and I've been furnished with no explanation!” as though this is a travesty of epic proportion, “We're being difficult about eating too.”

“I see...” This Keller says, “Well, how much has he eaten?”

She shows him the bowl, flattening the contents with the spoon.

“That should be okay,” Keller says, “Unless we're willing to eat more. It's important for regaining your strength as well, Peeta. You've been through quite the ordeal.”

“Because you care,” I point out.

“I do, actually, believe it or not.”

“I don't.”

“You're making that quite clear today,” he sets something down, on the food cart, that he has been carrying, “You can go, Melda, just leave the things.”

She does so.

He busies himself with whatever it was, “Now, I hope that you'll try and improve your attitude when Miss Cartwright comes to see you later. Considering how things ended last time it's very gracious of her to agree to come back. You're lucky to have such a good friend who is able to be understanding and considerate of what you've gone through—to come back and want to help you.”

“Cartwright?”

“Yes,” he says, drawing liquid up into a syringe, “Delly Cartwright?”

I feel like I should know that name.

He opens something and wipes my arm with it despite my initial resistance, “This is the new medicine. We're going to try this to help your mood, and the flashbacks and things, yes? It should help you respond to the new therapies better.”

“Because you've been so satisfied with everything else it seems.”

Keller sighs, pulls my arm straight and injects me with his vaguely yellow liquid, “Alright. We'll let that work it's way into your system for a little while to check on your reaction and then we'll send in Miss Cartwright.”

 

Are my fingers still there? It looks like they are but I can't feel them. When I push my thumb and finger together there are little stars and explosions under the skin. The curtains are sliding down the wall on to the floor—this can't be right. It can't. It can't.

Let's not watch this.

I close my eyes. There are still so many colors swirling around. I'm falling through them, a pool into nothingness, so quiet.

 

“Peeta?” the voice is over the hill and far away, “Are you sure he's okay?”

“Yes. It's fine,” a man's voice.

I'm rocking on a boat. My head is floating as I open my eyes and turn. The man's hand on my shoulder. Two faces coming into focus, the man's: red and blonde. A blonde girl, her's concerned. The man's more passive.

“Peeta--” she says, relief.

“See,” the man says, “he was probably just napping. He didn't eat much breakfast,” their voices are coming to me through water, all goopy.

“That's silly of you,” she laughs, “You know you need to eat.”

“I'll leave you two to talk,” the man says—Keller? That's it, “There's the videos if you want,” he points to the window, “controls are on the cart here, and there's some food,” he whispers something to her and leaves.

She comes close and hugs my neck. Her breath makes my ear tingle. She sits back. I turn slowly to look at her. My head will fall off if I move too fast. She gives a small smile.

“I'm glad to see you again. I was worried I wouldn't be able to, but—but they say you've been much more even tempered lately.”

“Okay?”

She's fidgeting a bit, and we sit there. I can see the light rippling around the edge of the window that is not a window, maybe there are bubbles trapped beneath the surface of it. I can't see where they are though. Maybe it has something to do with the curtains.

“Ahh,” she says, “I'm sorry I'm not sure what to talk about. Is there anything you want to ask me about? I mean,” she takes a deep breath. She looks sort of worried when I turn back to her, “Dr Keller was telling me I should try to talk about things we did when we were kids but I keep feeling like that stuff is just sort of, I don't know...how am I supposed to know what's good to talk about? I'm not good at this but I want to help you. I'm worried about you. You went through so much.”

“Yeah...” What am I supposed to say to that? Keller did make this big deal about her coming in though, “Thank you for coming back.”

“It's okay,” she says, taking my hand. Hers is shaking a bit.

“No. I must have scared you.”

Her hand is still shaky as she tries to grip mine, “You still are to be honest,” she forces a smile and turns her chair so she's facing more towards me and is also pulled a lot closer to the bed, it scrapes across the floor sharply and she winces, “sorry,” then she takes my hand more fully with both of hers, “Peeta, how do you feel right now?”

I don't know how to answer that.

She sighs, “So, _do_ you want to watch any of the videos he says he has?”

“No.”

“Me either,” she shakes her head, turning away towards to the cart and looking at something on there and pursing her lips, “They mostly look to be about the Hunger Games anyway and I really don't see how that would be helpful in _any_ way. I remember how you talked about that stuff when you came home...”

“You do?”

“Yes,” she looks back at me, “Of co—yes, when Guwar or I weren't at work you would come visit with us because your Mo—because we were friends. We would do things together. Every once in a while we would come to your house but I think, never mind, but anyway. Some times we could get you to talk about things that happened. I...I know it made you uncomfortable, but at the same time you would say “can't keep it all bottled up”,” she gives one of those watery smiles from inside the bubble that's forming around her distorting her words, but when she breathes in it pops and things become clear again, “I think you didn't like telling us about things you had to do. Things that weren't shown—or things that we hadn't seen...”

“Oh.”

She makes a strange sigh, “Are you hungry?”

“No?”

“You don't sound so sure,” she brings a bowl around in front of her looking at it sort of sadly, “It's not the greatest, but it's okay,” she starts breaking whatever it is into smaller pieces, “and it is food.”

“What was your job?”

“What?” she seems surprised I spoke to her.

“You said when you and Guwar weren't at work—what were your jobs?”

“Oh, right. My father was a cobbler—we owned the shoe maker, like—like your parents had the bakery, so I would help him. Guwar's family we—were the smiths.” Her voice is going strange again, “They—they fixed things for the miners made new picks and things,” she sets the bowl down on the bed because her hands are trembling, “Repaired mu—mine carts. They'd—they'd make hinges for doors, pots—pots and pans.”

“Where are they?”

Her face is wet as she looks at me with an odd expression, “They—they didn't make it here either, Peeta.”

“Oh.”

She wipes her face with the edge of her sleeve, “Peeta—you're not okay, right now. You knew Guwar longer than you knew me!” as she stands up the bowl tips over and things spill, “Why—why aren't you—? Say something!”

“You knocked over the bread,” I point to it as the bowl clatters off the bed and onto the floor, rolling in a small trailing circle.

She gasps a little, but at the same time she turns to me, curls of hair bouncing around her face, “I know you went through a lot!” she says, “I can't even imagine, but you're just—this is—I think I preferred it when I thought you were going to kill me!” and she goes and hammers on the door with her fist.


	7. Ess-cah-pay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are the warnings for this chapter.
> 
> Warning: Violence and Death. Nothing is described in very gory detail, but it's there and it happens.
> 
> Warning the second: Peeta is very fluxy so there's lots of crazy talk and insanity, more so than there has been since, the first two chapters really.
> 
> That's pretty much it for the warnings.
> 
> Thank you to those of you who are sticking with it. I hope you like this chapter, especially with who is back ^_^ and who else is here making their first appearance in any of my works since Sparking Frost, other than being briefly mentioned in Nights on a Train.

Eating is getting easier. Throat not so sore. Can eat more which they like.

_This one doesn't nervously watch the window like others. Maybe no one is out there this time of day. This one also likes to blather most of them are quiet. Flat. Spoon. Spoon. Drink. Spoon. Spoon. Drink. This one has offered to let me try and feed myself once now but was told against it by someone else but now we're alone._

“Do you want to put on the tapes?” She says, “I know they showed things to you in the earlier session but I don't think it'll matter too much if we review them again...”

               Do you know how many times I watched the tapes, Caesar. Do you?

“No.”

“Oh.” _Disappointment. Good. Sad, though. Bleeding heart. Exploit._

“I'm hungry,” _Look at food_ , “Can't think much else.”

“Oh, of course, I'm sorry. Silly me and tapes,” she brings the food over next to the bed and sits nearby offers the spoon of food. _Eat obediently. Give her sad eyes._

She looks around after a moment, “They're never ones to give anyone chances; but how are you going to get any better if they don't let you do anything at all.” She comes around to the left and loosens the middle of the strap. Still fastened but there's give between the bed and arm just enough to eat if distance is closed between bowl and mouth. Eat a few spoonfuls. She watches happily.

_Shaky hand. Drop the spoon close by side of bed._

“Oh, oops!” She laughs and comes over to pick it up. _Hit her with the bowl. Throw her off guard. Choke._ She slumps.

 _Undo the cuff from the bed on the left. Undo the cuff on the hand on the right. Undo the legs._ It's not like she has any weapons. They wouldn't bring that in. _Take spoon. Off the wrist thing from the left. Listen at the door. No sound._

_Open the door. Corridor. Guard at end of corridor. Have to get out. Have to get out. Must find her. Guard turns. Sees._

“Stop.” Hand up, “Stop right there.”

_Spring. Pin him against wall. Spoon in ear. No more. Down. Go on._

This room is low lit has many shadows. Many beds. Empty. Across to the side no exit.

“What the fuck just happened?” Voice familiar.

_To the back then._

“I'll check.” Male voice. Not familiar.

“You? Really?” Snort, “Okay. Should be fun, huh, kid?”

“You?”

_Turn. Fix. Answers._

“How are you ou-?” _Grab head. Hand over mouth. Pull down._

To his ear, “Don't scream. Just say where she is.”

 _Pull hand slightly away. Other hand on throat tight_ , “Wh-who?”

_Useless. Discard. Carry on. No scream._

“What was that?” Whispered. An echo of blonde hair.

“Someone being useless and stupid and probably dead. Stay here. Stay down.”

_Movement from right. Shape pounces near on empty bed. Lithe. Bald. Female._

“Blondie! Look at...you...” head tilted to side, “Shit.” Off the bed.

_Noise to the left._

“No—No,” Familiar she says, “You know it's me you want to take,” she moves odd. Feet lifting too high, “Fucking bare feet,” movement behind, “shit. Fuck. Fucking shit. Fuck.”

            Keep it real with me, Blondie.

“I told you stay down,” she points, “stay,”

            Screams in the dark. Back for more, are you?

“Gonna take your shot, at me?”

            Batshit. I can work with that.

_Shove the bed towards. She jumps up on it. Then over. Fall back. Roll her. Not the right her. All spike and harsh. Not trying to play nice. Not tricking. No mutt._

“What's with you?” she says.

_Hit her face. Throw to wall. Kip up._

“Oh? play time?” She cracks her neck.

_Keep moving. Have to get out._

_Attack comes from behind. Arms round neck. Legs round waist. Breath on neck. Reach to grab to throw but:_

“Come on, Blondie,” Fingers tapping on chest, words right in ear, “I thought you wanted to play. You gotta keep it real for me though, right? You promised.” _Hands don't want to work._

            You know these assholes cut off my hair?

                        As much as any of us were sane to begin with.

                        Speak for yourself.

                        There you go. It's working already.

_Get her away. Get her._

             Don't be sorry. Be pissed.

Where is this? Who is on me? _Get her off. Throw her._ Drumming on chest. _Grab. Pull._ She twists round. Facing me. Face to face. Johanna.

             Do I get to call you Baldie instead of Blondie?

“Ahh—you knew me for a second there?” _Fingers tapping shoulders. Hold on neck one hand. Smacking hand on shoulder. Throw her. Grab her ar—_ no. Johanna and I must get out of here. The odds are not in our favor. We're prisoners of the Capitol. _Have to find her. The mutt._ Ground. Ground meets knees. Johanna jumps off and sits in front of me.

“It's too loud. It's too loud. _Have to get out.” Move her..._ together. We need to leave—wait..., “How—how did we get out of the cells? Did you—did you break us out?”

Johanna takes my hands, “We're not in the Capitol, Peeta. We're in District Thirteen.”

“No,” That doesn't make sense.

“People came from here and got us out. They got us out. You and me and Annie. The bastard's had Annie too. Finnick's Annie.”

_Movement behind._

“Is-is he okay?” quiet voice.

“Thirteen was destroyed.” Thirteen was destroyed. No. We're in Thirteen. I have to tell you this every time I come in and it's getting tiresome. Thirteen was not destroyed. Do you know any other districts that are underground? There was a fire in Twelve. _It was her fault._ No. No it wasn't. It was fire bombed. It was bombed. The Capitol bombed it. The sky exploded. Was it because of me?

“Didn't I tell you to stay back, baby sister?” Johanna turns ever so slightly. We're not in the Capitol. We're not in the Capitol.

“I need to check on, Holvy. Someone else will be up soon.”

“I really don't think you do.” Johanna answers.

“Holvy?” I ask. Bits and pieces. Spoon. Ear. Useless, “What—what happened?”

“Don't worry about it,” she tells me, “Where have they been keeping him anyway?”

“I-I don't know. I've consulted on treatment options but I've not been allowed to see him. Too risky. They don't want anyone in there who might remind him of...of, you know. _You've_ been making me stay back.”

“Until he calmed down,” she sighs, “Fine. Go check on Holvy. This might be as much as we get.”

My hands are taken hold of and pulled down away from mine. I see her face in front of me, bobbing around.

“Come on, Blondie. Tell me what you think of the look. Can I pull off bald or what?”

_Footsteps go round. Who?_

“Blondie?”

“Johanna?”

“Yes. Come on. You're gonna be an ass and not say hello the first time we see each other face to face in months after just being screams through a wall?”

“You're going to _say that_ to him?” She's over behind us now in the slight light I can make out blonde hair tied up around her head and the blue pinafore. It's familiar. _Drop the spoon. Choke._ No. No. No.

“No point in sugar coating shit that happened,” she keeps tight hold of my hands with one and turns my head so I'm not looking at what the blonde girl is doing. There's someone on the floor. Odd angle. Not moving.

_More footsteps. Three sets._

“I hear them too. Stay still.”

 _Get up._ Get up. _Threat. Soldiers._

“Son of a bitch.” _Three. Guns._

“He's dead,” she says, from the other side, “His neck...”

“Shush...no wait. I'm sorry, Blondie. Baby-sis. Say what happened.”

“His neck is broken.” _Useless. Discard._

No. No. _Useless. Discard. Carry on._ No. No.

I sink back down. Johanna wraps her arms and legs around me.

“Why is he out of the secure room?” a voice asks.

“I don't know!” Johanna snaps, “But he's not a threat. I have him.”

“ _You_ can contain _him?_ ”

“Yes!” She shouts.

Footsteps walking away. Sound of a comm activating.

“What did I do? What did I do? There was a spoon...There was a woman in the room. I can sort of see her, and the corridor. He wasn't useless. He wasn't. He worked in here, didn't he? How is that useless?”

“I'm sorry, Blondie. I'm sorry. But if she didn't tell you—you—the guards...”

“It won't shut up.” It repeats now. Spoon. Ear. I can hear it squelching in through there. The push of him falling against the wall and the shimmering spoon I got it from the room. I tricked her. I got her to let me eat. I choked her. Is she dead too? Three people? Oh. Oh, I'm going to be sick.

“Keeeee....Keeeeee....” is she scratching my head or drumming me? I don't--

There are people talking behind us. Hushed voices. More people coming. _Footsteps. Closing. Threat. Threat. Turn._

“What the hell are you doing?” she demands.

“I'm sorry,” soft voice, “They want to take him back to the room, and that requires morphling.”

“The hell it did!” Everything is already getting—

“It's not up to you, Mason.”

“I told you I had him.”

I knew the fog would get here eventually.


	8. Under Keller's Nose

 

Screams echo. Mine. They don't know the answers you want. Pain. I don't know the answers you want. Anger. Mine. I have to get out. Others. Johanna. My name being called through trees. The sky shattering around me. A strange gurgling scream surrounded by the smell of singing hair and a crackling. Useless boy always screwing things up. People lost and separated. I thought you were dead. You're supposed to be dead. I'm going to kill you. You're too dangerous to be here.

 

I can't move. Not even a little. I can feel the restraints on my arms, around my neck, and on my leg but I can't move at all. There are people in the room but I don't want to open my eyes for then they are real.

“We need to be able to tell which one is in there,” a female voice, “Work on that. I want a better update in the future if you drag me down here again.”

Door closes.

 

“Approach cautiously,” I hear a hoarse male voice say. It's familiar though.

A hand touches my head and then my eye lids are pulled open and a bright light shined in. My head won't turn. Nothing. Still.

“Minimally responsive.” I can't see anything through the after haze. I think someone is still standing in front of me as my eyelids close once more.

“Adjust 5 c.c.s.” male voice again.

Shadows flickering. I feel my eyes though. I can feel them now, and my fingers and toes are twitching without my permission though. Nothing else wants to move, frustration builds.

Open eyes. Open. Will I be blinded?

The room comes out of blur, faces, the doctor, two nurses, guards around the edge of the room. One of the nurses, fidgets with bandages around her neck and looks at me warily. I can hear a spoon clattering to the ground.

“Peeta?” The man asks.

I turn my eyes carefully. I'm not sure if my mouth can work or if I can move to nod.

“How do you feel?”

“Trapped.” My mouth does work. It's very sore though. My voice is not my voice. Like the boy in the trees.

“You should.” He steps closer, “Given the events of a few hours ago we're keeping you under much stricter restraints than we had been until we can sort out exactly what...triggered the relapse.”

“Relapse?”

The nervous nurse with the bandages round her throat. The four guards. He's standing back further than normal too. Doesn't he normally have some scraping chair and pad and annoying clicky tool. None of that today. Everyone's just in a circle back from me.

“Yes. You broke out of the room and violence ensued. This was directly after Nurse Malda was in here giving you your food allotment. Can you recall what was going on at that time?”

Really they expect that? With everything that's been going on?

“Of course I don't know! I...I remember something about a spoon—Johanna? Maybe? ...sum—someone being called baby sister...something about videos? I don't know. I don't. You're constantly asking me stupid questions! At least their questions made sense!”

Keller—that's his name. He puts his hands up towards me, “Look—if we can work out what caused the...switch we can work to not have it happen again. I'm sure you want to be able to get out of here.”

“No. I want to be in a box forever.” Ridiculous people.

“Well, then.” Keller folds his arms, “Let's continue our work. If we work more with memory recovery perhaps you'll have more control.” He waves a couple of guards to the side and turns to the window/screen. He tells the nurses to do something. One of them comes to my left. Keller turns on the video screen, “Let's review times when memories of childhood were being discussed.”

A cave comes to view on the screen and I feel my limbs tensing. _Danger. She'll be there pulling at my limbs._

“Adjust the drip,” he tells the nurse.

Smoothness slips in. The cave walls glitter and shimmer, water drips create music I remember dancing, under a night sky, but there were walls and fire places, and food on spits, so many people, dressed like peacocks. So many bright colors whirling around. Black birds and fire painted on skin.   
Beeping, chirping sounds. Bleating. A man's voice raving about cheese. I should know that man.

Silver locket. Broken goat. Lies. Lies to save people she said. Broken goat. Pink ribbon. Kissing goat.

Sweet, sickly sweet berries.

I want to throw up.

So tired.

Fixing the goat. Not fixing me.

Mouth so dry. So hot.

Trumpets. A feast.

Whirling fabric as people twist and bounce across the floor, violin strings and drum beats, trumpets and voices echoing in song. Spinning around, trying to maintain balance in the crowd of people.

Her voice laughing out. Reaching for me. Trying to put me to sleep.

“No.” I reach for the hand.

“Oh!”

There's a hand in my hand and someone is there. Pale in the darkness. Pinafore and pale hair, white skin, warm hand.

“You're awake?” they ask moving closer I realize they're female, young, small. Baby-sis floats through my brain attached to their voice. She gently pries my fingers from her hand.

“Yes?” I'm not quite sure.

“I'm so glad,” she leans down on the bed beside me, face coming more into focus as she undoes the strap around my neck, as my head falls slightly forward she wraps her arms around my neck. Then she pulls back, “I was so worried.”

“You were?”

She sits on the edge of the bed and reaches over to my hand. I tense for a moment. Echoes of fear from the room. Violent outbursts. Danger. She checks my wrists but doesn't undo anything.

“Yes, I was,” she says, “and not just because you're a patient. We know each other, but I'm not going to hold you to anything,” I think I can make out a smile, “You were catatonic—zoned out for almost four hours, and then there was some not making much sense...before...before they put you out again.”

“I...think I do that a lot.”

She nods, “The not making sense? It does happen from time to time. I'm going to turn the light up a little bit.”

I close my eyes. I feel it happening, the slight warmth and slowly open my eyes again. For a moment we're in a kitchen and an older woman is at a sink wearing her hair like this girl is but the girl has braids. The kitchen disappears.

My new companion is looking at me slightly nervous. _Didn't I tell you to stay back, baby sister?_

“Did you have a goat?”

“Yes,” she nods, “Yes, I did. I also used to work with my mother back in Twelve healing people so now I work here. Though...I'm not _technically_ supposed to be in here, but I had to check on you.”

“Oh. Well, you did.”

“Somewhat,” she comes back to the bed, “but I need to talk to you about treatment.”

“I don't want to hear about...”

“Ssh,” she says, “Just wait...” she turns and takes the hand that is closest to her, tapping on it a certain way. It's familiar, comforting. I remember it from the room with many beds, sitting on the floor, Johanna talking to me, “and...see if you change your mind.”

“I...I'm listening...”

“There's a lot of issue coming up with a plan for your treatment because what happened to you...is so unknown. Lots of brainstorming, lots of suggestions, and the people in charge—Keller is ultimately in control. I saw what happened with you and Johanna yesterday and she had some ideas...which she proposed to continue. She and Keller had a difference of opinion,” she laughs a little, “don't blame yourself for his hoarse throat, okay? That one is not on you. I said I would help her help you even if she wasn't able to go through the higher ups and this is one way. I have a little easier access in general than she does. So, I said I'd relay messages.”

Keller. Johanna. How do we even know this will work? Any of this? How long have I even been here? I lean back against the bed.

“I know it probably sounds like a new round of awful...” she says, “So I don't blame you if you're hesitant or even angry at the idea. Keller's been running you through all kinds of things and all the poking and prodding and all the drug therapies...” she shakes her head, “The more I've seen—it's the wrong way. There was more sense from you in five minutes you were with her than in the time you've been back here. Maybe the rapport you had in prison—I don't know...but--”

“It's been how long?”

“Almost three weeks.”

“That—that long?”

She grips my hand tightly as I feel it starting to shake, “I'm sorry, Peeta. It's the drugs.”

I shake my head, “I just...”

“We'll fix it, and we'll do it right under Keller's nose and show him how it's done, what do you say? Do you trust us?”

I grip her hand tightly, “Tell, Baldie. We'll keep it real.”

 


	9. Therapy Seven Style

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I give thanks to Ryxl here who helped me sound back and forth some of the Johanna dialogue and come up with some of the things that she does. The drumming and the rhythm for comfort thing (that has been shown several times before) is sort of a therapy technique (a bit like EFT) and we also figured that 7 has a rhythmic method of communicating under the Capitol's nose that they use much the way some of the districts used the mockingjays to their advantage, given 7 is large and has so many trees and things they could drum on.

_I feel cold and shivery but happy but I can smell stew which helps me ignore the throbbing in my leg as I set a large basket down. She looks at me excited. It's her favorite meal. Carefully she divides up some of the food and lets me back into the sleeping bag so I don't freeze. There are apples and bread, cheese, rice. There is also rain and water coming into our cave. We will be washed away if it keeps up much longer. We eat though. We have been so hungry. Then we prepare for watch. She takes first, wants me to rest. I need to heal as much as I can, she says._

_I wrap my arms around her and settle down to rest. I know I'm tired. Even though I'm cold it should be easy, especially with food in my stomach now, after so long. As I'm drifting off I hear her saying something which I don't quite catch._

_But then cold metal is at my throat and I can feel it slicing._

“Stupid fucking, son of a bitch.”

It snaps me awake, “Johanna?!”

“Oh, good. You still remember me.” She appears out of the shadows in the corner of the room, “You remember we're going to be doing some work? Our little secret. Well, ours and a few other peoples...” she looks towards the ceiling.

“Huh?”

“Oh, well, some people are idiots, but some people are not, and well, they also owe me for the fact that their asses got out of the god damn arena when ours didn't, and they know that if they don't loop security footage so that it doesn't look like I'm in here I will break their fancy wheelchair and shove parts of it places they really don't want it and it will take them ages to work out with their fancy brain how I even got it there in the first place; but maybe if they see further proof the other people will stop being idiots.” She gives a toothy grin, “So...how are you doing?”

She lost me some of the way there, but, I recognize that part, “I've been worse.”

“No shit,” she comes over to me, “You're awake, and talking to me, which is great.”

“You got out,” I point out to her, “and still have all your fingers and toes.”

“This is true,” she says.

_Do I get to call you Baldie instead of Blondie?_

She's working at the straps around my wrists with her hands. Something deep in the pit of my stomach tells me this is a bad idea. Something tied to the memory of throwing her across the room into a wall and trying to rip her...in half? Which doesn't make sense given I haven't—have I been places? Where she is?

_Come on, Blondie. Tell me what you think of the look. Can I pull off bald or what?_

“What-what are you doing?” Trying to pull away is not effective at all given there's not very far to go, stuck on this bed with little give in the straps, but I remember her hugging herself around me, too, apologizing for something, and it's not just—that seems very real, as real as the screams, and the quiet girl voice saying someone was dead, and that was—that was my fault.

“I'm undoing you. What does it look like?”

“No!” I push at her hand, “No—those are there for a _reason_.” She can't. She can't. That is a very, very bad idea. I'm not allowed to be out.

“Hush, Blondie. Do you want to get out, or not?” She asks, “I'm getting you out. Didn't I promise?”

“I don't...”

She makes a tutting noise with her teeth and I hear a buckle clink and more straps.

“C'mon, talk to me. Keep it real, remember?” She tuts some more. It's that familiar rhythm. The girl with the goat, “Like I really wish I could have just punched Flickerman in his big fat smile during that last interview we had to do,” _do you know how many times I had to watch the tapes, Caesar?_ “and you still had to talk to that bastard. We gotta tell everyone what you went through. Make them pay for it, but...” she's working on another strap, why is she undoing me? She can't undo me, “...we can only do that if you stay with me, okay, Blondie? Why am I the one doing all the talking?”

“...tapes?”

“Yeah? What about the tapes?” I feel the strap loosen on my other wrist.

My arms feel so light. I might float away like a feather but I'm tied down by my foot. Wait, I have my leg. I have both my legs.

“Doing okay, Blondie?”

“I have...two...legs. When did they give me my leg back?”

“You'll have to tell me that one when you can put things together,” she's unstrapping my not foot, “You think you can do the other foot and help me out?” She offers me a hand to pull me forward more. My hands still feel very light I don't know what they're going to do, “Come on,” she says, “You can do it. I know you can.” She grabs my elbow and upper arm and pulls me forward, puts my hands on the leg strap, massaging my fingers for a moment with gentle taps until I start working. My fingers fumble as they pull at the buckles everything is tingling. Things starting to come clearer.

“You got out...aren't people going to be coming for you?”

“It's not quite like that, Blondie. We're going to try and clear some things up, okay? Keep it real. You remember what baby-sis said?”

Straps clang down. My foot begins to tingle as well. This is a bad idea. It fills my head how bad this is. I can't get air. My body doesn't want to work. I'm not safe. There's danger. _Danger. Threat._

“No, you don't!” She snaps _. Tensing. Ready to spring._

_A scream loud and piercing._

_Anger. Keening. Banging._

A ringing in my ears. Curling me up.

_Make me a deal, Blondie. Keep it real, okay?_

“Doing better?” Johanna asks.

“I...don't know.”

She takes my hand and my arm by the elbow, “Let's get you off the bed. Ready to walk?”

I turn on the bed and swing my legs down. My right foot still feels slightly tingly but it's not so bad when I put it down on the ground. It's weird climbing off a bed. There are echoes of hanging on a wall and barely having room to move.

“Things aren't right.” I reach out with the hand she's not holding. There's so much space.

“Things are more right,” she says, “This is not the Capitol. We were rescued.” _They got us out. You and me and Annie. The bastard's had Annie too. Finnick's Annie._

“They got us out...”

“Yeah. You, me and Annie. We're living it up in District Thirteen now.” She brings me level with the wall, “I got right in here from the other part of the hospital wing. No chains to break out of. No brackets. I didn't have to kill anyone to get in here...you got a comfy bed in here, right?”

I look back at it, “It's weird.”

“Yeah, I know. I got used to sleeping hanging from the wall too; but we don't have to do that any more. We just gotta work on getting them to let you off of the straps for good.”

“That's _not_ a good idea.”

She sighs, “Blondie...”

“I'm confused a lot, and things keep getting lost but I know I've done horrible things. I should be kept in that. It's not safe. Why did you let me out?”

“I promised you, and I saw you two days ago and that's when I found out where they had you—these assholes aren't helping you at all...remember we made that arrangement through baby-sis, she who had the goat...” she pauses for a moment, “Prim?”

“The goat with the pink ribbon.”

“I'll take your word for that.”

“That doesn't help!” I try to scrub my head but she has my hands. She follows me down to the ground though as I crouch.

“I'm sorry,” she says, “I don't know about Twelve. I'll see if we can get her in here to confirm, okay?”

I nod, “There are all these things in my head but they say things that make other things wrong.”

“I know,” she says. She moves us around so that we're sitting against the wall. She leans my head against her shoulder. I've been held by straps or metal instead of flesh and bone for so long—it's almost uncomfortable at first and then, as I start to feel content at the presence of her warmth I remember all the times this has gone wrong; all the times she has used this to attack me, turned security into pain, “You're safe, Blondie,” she drums her fingers against my cheek, gently, “It's okay. Relax.”

I take her other hand in mine and squeeze it, acknowledge it there strong and secure, “We're not in the Capitol.”

“No. We're not.”

“They got us out.”

“Yes. Because of you.”

“Because of _me_?”

“Yes,” she says, gripping my hand, holding me in the world, “You warned everyone here the Capitol was sending an attack. You saved Thirteen from being actually destroyed. That convinced the bitch Coin we were actually worth the resources to save so she finally did. _You're_ the reason we're not still hanging on walls having electric showers.”

That can't be right. I feel my head shaking.

“I keep it real with you, right? That's what I do.”

“Keep it real.” I echo.

“It's the truth,” she says, “They got us out because you saved them. Hold on to that, okay? You saved all these people in here from being mincemeat under a shit ton of probably radioactive rubble.”

The door opens and a blonde head peeks through, “Shift change is soon.”

“Okay,” Johanna says, “Hey, did your goat have a pink ribbon?”

“Yes, she did,” she says, sound curious as to why she's being asked.

“See, there you go. Not so confused after all.” Johanna says to me.

One fact down. Four million to go.

“Ah,” she—Prim says, with a smile, “but we have to get you out of here,” she says to Johanna, not sounding too happy about the idea, “if we're to make progress.”

“Yeah, I know,” Johanna says, “I'd love for Keller to find me in here, but yeah...I know. They don't have any paint here, do they?”

_You don't like my art work? You just said you wanted me to draw you?_

_Now I'm nervous...I have no idea what you were thinking of when you drew me. When you did this? What was I wearing? Which hair did I have?_ But then she's not laughing and happy. No gems stuck to her face. She's crying and bruised _Best to do what they ask, yes. Stay-stay safe._

Prim thinks about this for a moment, “I know they do for the planes...but that's not really what you're thinking of, is it?”

“No,” Johanna shakes her head, standing up, pulling me to my feet, “We'll talk outside. I'm sorry, Blondie. We've got to put you back in the bed.”

“That's fine. It's safer anyway.”

Johanna makes a disgusted noise, “You're not a monster.”

“I killed those people...”

“And how many people have I killed?” Johanna snaps, stepping away from me, “Are you saying I'm a monster?”

“I don't--” Johanna's killed people? Johanna covered in blood, yelling at her on the side of the water. _I brought them here for you!_ Back away.

“Shit!” she says, “Shit. Shit.”

Prim is the one who comes towards me, “You were both in the Games, Peeta. Everyone who came out of those had to kill people...to—to get out.”

“But that's different, isn't it?!”

Prim looks desperately over at Johanna.

“Isn't it?” I shout at them, “That's survival. I—I was out of here, wasn't I? I got out of here, and I just randomly killed people and I don't even know how or—or why...”

“Be pissed about it!” Johanna shouts back, “That's fine! That's great! You're allowed! If you're pissed about it maybe it'll keep you more alert! But you're not the monster! Snow is the monster! He's the bastard who did that to you! Make him pay for it!”

“Bed,” Prim points, “Shift change. We only have about five more minutes.”

I go towards the bed, and we get me situated, and they fasten the straps.

“Try to hold together,” Johanna says.

Prim kisses three fingers to her lips and offers them towards me as she leaves the room. I wish I could remember why that makes me want to cry.

 


	10. Beginnings of Recall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ryxl and I put our heads together and decided between Prim's training with her mother and Johanna's people in Seven there would be some knowledge of plant life that could help purge things like morphling from someone's system to help them be clearer headed. 
> 
> Warnings of some brief recollections of childhood abuse in this chapter.

I eat but it's mostly wooden motion open mouth, close mouth, chew, swallow, drink my water. They check my vitals take more blood, ask me questions about what I remember from yesterday.

We talk about the goat, the cave, _her_. What do I feel when my fists are clenching? What do I feel when my teeth are grinding together? Some of these words sound familiar.

Then tapes and drugs. People in trees. People in clothes. People in caves. People so bold. Blacks and reds, blonde and dark. I feel them floating away from me even as I try to hold on to them, the cold and heaviness in my limbs drags me away from what they're saying and pulls me through the ground until everything is on top of me and I'm a small point beneath a big tower that's going to topple over.

Bright lights in my eyes again, clicking noises, and shadows moving in, out and away.

“Peeta,” a foggy, soft whisper.

My head is full of sludge as I try to turn towards the noise.

“Peeta?” it repeats, more concerned. Weight shifts as she sits on the bed near me and takes my face gently with her hands and turns it so that I can properly see her face. She's slightly blurry but I can make her out, the blonde crown and the up turned corners of a smile, “Hey...” there's something moving across my field of vision a blurry shape that makes her eyes disappear for a moment, “That's good,” she says. She's coming more into focus as I blink.

“Hey,” my tongue feels too big for my mouth. The word doesn't come out correctly.

She gives me water which helps.

“Johanna's going to be in later. You remember Johanna?”

I nod but things go blurry again, “Baldie...”

“Yes,” she says, “She's going to bring Delly with her. Hopefully the three of you can talk about some things, and do some positive work without video or drug intrusion, which is why I have this for you.” She pulls a tiny ball out of the pocket of her pinafore. It's about the size of a fingernail. It's an old smell, as she holds it towards my face, something I haven't experienced for ages. For a moment I'm partly burying myself under a pile of leaves and then I'm back in the bed again, “Hold this in your cheek,” she says, “It'll help clear your head. Though...it does make some people throw up...” she warns, pulling an apologetic face, and offering me more water, “...but the drugs are out of your system one way or another.”

“That's faster,” I point out.

“True, if it doesn't. Well, either way I'll be in to...” she looks slightly embarrassed, “...help you to the bathroom,” she helps me pouch the ball which seems to be some sort of moss in my cheek, and I drink some more water. She puts a bucket by the side of the bed, and slips back out of the room.

 

I'm one of the fortunate ones who does not throw up, it seems.

After we're sorted and Prim sets me up with means to wash myself, she also leaves me a pair of pants and a shirt and then goes out of the door. It's so strange to be free of the shackles to have a semblance of clothes and the means to walk around, unsteady as I feel on my feet. I find myself knocking on the walls to make sure they're there. There's a beep from the door area and then it opens and Johanna comes in with someone else.

“Well, hey, you look almost human!” Johanna remarks, “This is Delly, Blondie, remember? You guys...grew up together?”

“Yes,” the girl introduced as Delly nods, “We lived very close together in the Merchant District. I would tell people he was my big brother when we were growing up. I mean, we're the same age, but look at him,” she gives a smile.

I find myself scratching the back of my head and feeling sort of sheepish, especially because the things she's saying aren't all that familiar. I do...remember something...

“Chalk drawings?”

“Yes!” she says, excitedly.

“I remember you talking about it,” I clarify, “In here. I don't really remember doing them. Don't get too excited,” I lean against the wall and sit down.

“We gotta get some comfy stuff in here if they're going to make you stay in this hole,” Johanna remarks, sitting down across from me, and inviting Delly to sit down too, she does so cautiously, “I know we've been uncomfy for months that doesn't mean it's gotta stay that way. I've got plans to go out to Twelve to see if we can get some things from your place? Can you...think of anything you might...want?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?” she presses.

“No! Alright?”

Delly scoots back a little.

“Okay...” Johanna says, “Shit. Just see if something floats in there while we're talking. No pressure,” she waves a hand towards me, “It's okay. It really is. I was just...hoping. I have some ideas though. Prim and I were talking. If we can get up there. They're trying to keep me grounded but I will hijack a plane if I have to.”

Delly looks over at Johanna with wonder.

“You do see what I have already done,” Johanna points out, “You best believe I was trying to many ways to get out of things back there, but the first time I popped a thumb and got out of a wrist thing they changed my shackles...” she shakes her head, “but we're not here to talk about me. We're here to help Blondie. So, tell us, what was he like as a kid? What sort of trouble did he get into?”

“Peeta, wasn't really a get in trouble type of kid...” Delly says.

“Why am I _not_ surprised?” Johanna replies, “Nothing at all? Never ever?”

“Not really...” Delly turns her lip around, “I mean, him and his brothers would rough house, obviously. There'd be bumps and bruises here and there, you know?”

“ _Useless. Can't leave you to watch anything! Why do I ever ask you to do anything?” I know where to turn so the rolling pin will still hit but not hurt quite so much._

“Did you remember something?” Johanna asks.

“No.”

“This doesn't work if you don't keep it real, Blondie.”

I sigh, “It wasn't anything good.”

“Ah,” she says, “Moving on,” she turns back to Delly, “So, no climbing roofs or sneaking off into the woods or anything?”

“Oh, no!” Delly shakes her head, fervently, “The woods are so dangerous! None of us would dare go out there, that's why Kat—that's why...” she trails off toying with her fingers and looks at me warily.

“Poachers?” Johanna offers.

“Uh, yes,” Delly agrees, quickly, “Are so amazing, because they were willing to go out into all that, and they could manage and come back alive. I could never imagine how sh—they did it. There's so many things out there...”

“Uh-huh,” Johanna apparently doesn't believe these things that Delly is saying. I'm not sure why. If she brought her in here to help me why would she...why would she want someone to come in here who would tell lies? This doesn't make sense. Johanna shakes her head, “Woods aren't all that dangerous. You were just told that to keep you...never mind now's not the time for that. Let's talk about something else. Sorry, Blondie. I didn't...intend to...” She leans her head onto her knees.

“No, it's fine. We'll just talk about lies. That's super helpful.”

“Yes, and get pissy with the people who are trying to help you. That's super helpful too,” she counters.

Delly smiles, “I like you,” she says to Johanna.

Johanna laughs, “Okay, more...if there's nothing exciting from childhood that might jar something loose; what about teen years? Did you guys sneak out after hours to...I don't know—what do you guys do for fun in Twelve?”

“Well, we would hang out with Guwar. He's—he was,” she corrects, “the blacksmith's middle son. You and he were really good friends, Peeta. You were together at school a lot,” her words are running together, but then she stops, “I don't...” she looks at Johanna.

“What did he look like?” Johanna prompts.

“He wasn't as tall as Peeta, but not by much,” she says, leaning in to point to the top of my ear, “and his hair was dark, growing up there was teasing about Seam blood,” she chews on her lip.

“Seam blood?” Johanna asks.

“People from the other side of the District—the miners, they're mostly darker. I mean, you've seen Kah—um...but anyway, people are just mean.”

“You're so polite,” Johanna says, “It's cute.”

_Why would you make him walk up all those steps, Delly Cartwright? I thought I taught you better manners._

“Anyway, Peeta would get on them if they started it and I guess that's how they got to be friends?” Delly falters, “They had all sorts of weird jokes.”

“Like what?” Johanna asks.

“Why was she mad about stairs?” I ask.

“What?” Delly and Johanna ask.

I feel embarrassed for a moment, “I just—something came to me. A woman...it was a...” hold on to it, please brain, “cold morning and wooden railing, and a white door, and you...you were opening it and she was behind you, far back in—in another room and she said “Why would you make him walk up all those steps, Delly Cartwright? I thought I taught you better manners than that. Be polite next time. Meet somewhere on the ground!”” I wind up wagging my finger in a weird way.

Delly looks both really happy and as though she's about to cry. What did I do?

“That's...that was my mother, Peeta,” she says, putting a hand to her mouth.

Johanna claps.

“That...that was the winter before you guys...before the tour. You'd come over because we were going to meet Guwar, and you _were_ supposed to wait downstairs; but well what you told Mom was, you did need to practice outside stairs, with the new leg and everything and because you're you and you're utterly charming, everything got smoothed over and she practically offered for you to come use our stairs as a personal training area...” Delly looks so excited you'd think we'd discovered a secret stash of medicine and food supplies.

“Awesome!” Johanna says and pats my ankle.

Is it going to be like this every time? I remembered one _tiny_ thing and it wasn't even that great. The rest of everything is still a tangled mess. It was walking up a stair case. Go me.

“Don't look so sour, Blondie,” Johanna goes on, “This is just the first step. It's going to take a while, but this is good, okay?”

“If you say so.”   
“I _do_ say so,” she persists, “So stop looking so grumpy,” She pats Delly on the leg, and gets up to go to the door, “Go on. Go on. What else happened that day?”

“Well, Peeta was going to be leaving for a few weeks and it was the only day that Guwar and I both weren't working before then so we were all spending time together...”

Johanna opens the door and I hear her murmuring back and forth to someone.

“Peeta,” Delly says, knocking on the floor next to me.

I turn to her, “Sorry. I'm a bit paranoid still, I guess.”

“It's okay.”

“We met Guwar in the square. There's—there was this park type area near the mayor's house and it had little areas we would sit and eat, you know? There were a few people who would get together and play instruments for coin sometimes. Josin is still here he played his violin during the raid to keep the children calm.”

“Really?” Johanna comes back over and sits down by us, “Most excellent.”

“Do I even like violin music?” I hate this. I lean my head back against the wall.

“You enjoyed it,” Delly says, “I mean, if you didn't actually like it you never said. Guwar picked up things from the bakery, and the butcher and you had brought things from home and so we had food.”

“Wait, Guwar picked up things from the bakery?” Johanna says, “Not Peeta?”

“No...” Delly looks a little embarrassed at that.

“Keep it real,” I point out.

“You'd had a pretty big argument with your Mom a day or so before so it was better if he went there and you didn't.”

“Argument?” Johanna asks.

“About what?” I add.

Now Delly hesitates. She looks to Johanna and makes a weird face. It's sideways so I'm not sure what it means. There's a beep at the door just then and Johanna goes to answer it. I'm trying to think the few things I've remembered and whether or not they would actually be true. The rolling pin attack. Her being angry with me about my being useless, but is that real? Who would know? They would; but they're dead. Delly said my brothers and I rough-housed but there's no guarantee that would have been talked about, is there?

Prim follows Johanna into the room. She's pushing a cart which she leaves by the door, “Really?” she's saying.

“Yes,” Johanna answers, “but we're talking about something more serious right now.”

“Not really,” I point out, “Delly's too scared.”

“It's not as though you haven't given me reason!” Delly snaps.

She does have a point, doesn't she? Keep hold, “So the argument was about _her?”_

I hear Prim tense. Johanna puts a hand on Prim's arm for a moment and then closes the distance to Delly and I.

Delly nods, “Mostly, yes,” she says, “I think there was other stuff too, but that was all you would say.”

_Useless._

_“_ _Would bleeding to death on top of the Cornucopia have been an embarrassing death or not, out of curiosity?” She wants to hit me. She does. Right in the middle of the shop._

I feel my fists clenching.

Someone sits next to me, “You still with us, Blondie?”

“I'm sorry,” Delly says.

“No,” Johanna says, “We can't pussyfoot around this. She has to be talked about otherwise things are just going to keep exploding and we've already proved some of their theories wrong. He didn't just flip out immediately upon seeing Prim, did you?” she nudges me.

I manage not to attack her.

“No...” I say through gritted teeth.

“Still,” Johanna says, “How about you guys go for now?”

“Are you--?” Prim starts.

Delly has already scrambled up and is going towards the door, “Good night, Peeta,” she says.

But then the door is shut and Johanna and I are alone.

 


	11. Distracting the Assassin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible triggers here, talking about child abuse, flashbacks to child abuse and...there's some rough and tumble "distraction".

“Johanna--”

“If you tell me to just strap you down and leave I am going to punch you,” she says.

“Then we probably will have a problem.” I lean forward and put my head between my knees. I can feel myself slipping sideways. A collision of colors and—and...

“Tell me what's going on in your head,” she says.

“How?” _Moving towards. Hands. Grab._

“Tell me.” Forceful, “What's going on. In your head. What did you remember? That got everything riled up. Was it about Katniss? Or was it something else?”

_Face to face now. Katniss. Where?_ No. No. 

“No. It wasn't...” I manage. Our grip on each others arms relaxes, “Not entirely,” I let out a long breath.

“The argument with your parents?”

“Mom.”

“Right...”

“Danger, I guess.” I shake my head.

“Not just Katniss then,” Johanna remarks.

I feel my fists clenching, “Apparently she was involved in the argument somewhere...” I manage.

“Only you would know for sure,” Johanna points out.

“Lovely.” I bang my head against the wall, at least I'm not trying to rip anything apart.

Johanna laughs.

“What?” I ask her.

“Nothing.”

“I'm glad my frustration amuses you.”

“It's not that,” she says. She turns around so that she's kneeling partly and looks at me, “I mean look at us, right here. A guy from Twelve, a girl from Seven, in a hole in Thirteen. It's so incredibly insane, right? Grew up on opposites of Panem and now thanks to the wonders of that asshole Snow and the glory of the Capitol we have so much in common.”

I just look at her.

She leans back against the wall again and shakes her head, “Miners, Tree-fellers. I mean granted you apparently didn't do any mining...”

“I guess not.”

“Well, it's not like they need miners up here anyway,” she says. There's a pause, “Did you like the bakery?”

“I don't...” I sigh, “I haven't really...I'm not sure that I've remembered anything much about the bakery itself...” I can feel my body bouncing off the side of the oven though and the thud of the rolling pin.

“What did you remember?” she asks, putting her hand on the fist I've clenched without realizing it.

“Keep it real, right?”

“Right,” she says, “On the lines of the “nothing good” from before?”

I nod, “But it might not be real, right?” I ask hopefully, though I can feel it sinking into the pit of my stomach. The truth of it.

“You don't believe that though, do you?”

I shake my head, “That's great. The first few things I remember clearly and they're walking up a flight of stairs and my mother beating me with a rolling pin and throwing me into an oven.”

“She—who? What, now?” Johanna says, “Tried to cook you?”

“No...” I can feel it slipping, “into—against it. Against it. I...I...don't remember why though,” I find myself laughing at that.

“It probably doesn't matter. People like them, it doesn't matter what you did or didn't do - it's all an excuse anyway,” she says.

“I just know that _wasn't_ the argument that Delly was talking about. It can't have been. I had both my legs. I can _feel_ it, picking myself back up. So...so...it has to have been real, doesn't it?” I pull myself up the wall. 

Johanna follows suit, “We've been through that already, Blondie.”

I walk into the middle of the room, “I can't...” I can feel things boiling beneath at that...the things that surfaced when Delly was talking earlier, something about the Cornucopia, something.

“Let it out,” Johanna tells me.

“What you said before? How it doesn't matter to them? Why would she have us then? Children? Delly agreed there were three of us. It wasn't just me. I was just the last. Why would they keep going? She let Dad have it too. I—I can hear it. He would try to sing, my brother, sing and make noise upstairs to drown them out, but—but his singing was awful and if he made too much noise it would—it would get her attention...” _Danger. Doors slamming. Whatever she'd been using before still in her hand. Raised high. Threat. Danger._

Gah. Not—this—she's so clear there, coming towards us—towards me, unsafe. I can't. It's slipping. She's not here. That was then. That was then. We're in Thirteen.

“Blondie--”

“The—the bit I remembered about Delly. I was snapping at her about bleeding to death on the Cornucopia. I'm not sure the whole thing there. That was all I saw. I guess I had been at the bakery, but mustn't have been for long. I was still in a coat.” Stay here. Stay here. I can see something else too, “She—she was mad about her too, about Katniss,” look, you can say the name, look at that, “I was trying to find out exactly why. Don't know if I got an answer...” _Maybe it's because she knew. Knew that the mutt was a traitor._ Shouldn't have gone there. Shouldn't have. Pushed it too far. _Useless. She knew though. She knew. She knew the mutt was dangerous. Hated her from start. Hated the name: Everdeen. Wouldn't trade. Still hung up, and now the boy. Why do you waste that on her? Burning perfectly good bread. You know how much that cost us? I told you to give that to the pigs! They'll not trade us as much ham now unless we give them something else. Something we could actually eat. If I could put your name in again—but your brother's aren't going to suffer that for your mistake.  
There it is. The hit. _

“Blondie?” Movement towards. Lash out to grab, “Shit.”

_This one was here before. This one should know a way to her—or people who do—baby-sis. Yes. Capture. This room is sparse. Bed attached to ground. Cart too far right now. She moves towards to kick. Grab leg. Go to swing. She wraps around from the back. Familiar. Drop. Roll her. Throw her off. She rolls. Springs back up to her feet. Runs towards me. Move sideways. Trip her. She catches left leg with foot. Go down on hands. She's swung around once more. Launches forward. Grapple. She manages to keep on top for a moment. Leans down to face. Then moves sideways slightly._

_Expected talk. Instead tongue around ear. Nibble. Bite. Bite on neck. Sucking._

_Strange stirring...feeling...lower in body_

_Different than desire to fight._

_Have to get her away. Must keep focus._

_Roll us over. Hard. She keeps hold. Pulls up. Wraps legs around. Bites shoulder._

_Stirring again. Need. Need._

_Grab her face. Pull. Find mouth with mine. Biting. Tongues entwined._

_Pull apart._

“Yeah. There we go,” she says.

_That stirring, strong. Have to. Need to. Want to. Want to...what? Something is hardening lower. Can feel the tightening of muscle. Strengthening with need._

“Ah...” she says, pulling at clothes then. _Pants down. Releasing the hardness. Taking shaft with hand. Sliding herself on top. The connection...lights behind eyes. More. Push against her. Pull up to grab her hair. She takes my head. Biting lip. Push. Push. Thrust._

“Harder!” she demands, “Harder! Bite me!” _She pushes her neck towards mouth. Bite hard. Bites neck in return._

“Faster! Harder!” _Bouncing. Pushing down. Writhing side to side. Rolls. On top now. Thrusting. Rolls. She on top again. Leaning down. Biting me._

“Come on! Harder! Harder! Faster!”

Where? _Bite. Thrust. Thrust._ Johanna? What? _Rolls again. On top. Pushing against wall._

“Faster!” She demands, _pushing against wall herself_ , “Harder! Almost. Almost. Almost. Yeah! Ah!” _Buries teeth in shoulder. Hard. Sparks._ Sparks. _Breathing hard. Both of us. Teeth sharp in shoulder. Hands clawed in back. Her legs wrapped tightly around hips pulling._

“Harder! Harder!” echoes in my head.

_Thrust. Ramming against wall for brace. Then._

_Strange again...sparks. Not just...sparks..._

_Over...Bright..._

I can see nothing but light. I feel calm. Nothing hurts.

None of my limbs want to work properly. It's as though I've run five miles.

Johanna and I are all tangled together, sweaty, out of breath. What...just...?

“Oh, hey, Blondie,” she says, “Back with me? Good. So, I think I made friends with your assassin side...” She starts to pull apart but only partially, turning to face me, so we're sideways, rather than me on top of her. The floor is cool on my side. I can't find words, properly, “...and it's _probably_ better that got vented on me, because I don't think your fiancee would have taken that very well if that was her first time.”

“I don't...” is all I can manage. The floor is cool on my side because I'm naked. I'm naked. We're naked. Snatches return to me. Thrusting. Demands for it to be harder and faster. Her gripping me tightly and pushing against me. I reach to my shoulder and feel the roughness where she bit me.

She reaches over and ruffles my hair, “It's just sex, Blondie. It's okay. I don't hold anyone to anything when it comes to that.”

I go to sit up but that is quickly stopped by how much colder the floor is to parts of my body. I lay back down.

Johanna laughs, “Lets not freeze your nuts off. Come over here,” she slides closer, and pulls my head towards her chest, “It's okay. Besides that was partly survival on my part because I'm a terrible, terrible person.”

“If you were a terrible person you wouldn't be here. You would be letting them keep me a drug filled vegetable.”

“That's true. See, you're learning.” She pats my head, drumming the soothing rhythm, “Morphling's no good for anyone long term. I got off that shit as soon as I could—didn't want to end up like those poor guys from six. Nurse got the message when I stabbed her arm with the needle. I was half expecting them to start shooting me from the doorway like the Capitol guards did...” she gives a slight laugh.

I remember it. It comes through clearly, “I shouted your name—but then I realized if you were dead what good would it do...” I feel my eyes filling with tears, “but then—but then I realized they were probably just scared to get close—you'd been attacking them more effectively than I could, I'm sure. They still wanted to try and get information out of you. They needed you alive, so they didn't kill you.”

“Oh, Blondie,” she says, “They didn't kill me because they could torture you with torturing me. Why else would they put us next to each other? They could have put us anywhere. We had no idea Annie was even there, right?”

I feel myself shivering.

“Let's get you some clothes back on before you freeze to death.”

But that's not why I'm cold. They did that. They did that to her—because of me. Then I see the red haired girl and I smell her hair burning as she screamed but the scream wasn't right—a weird gurgling noise that makes me want to throw up. I hear Johanna talking to me but I can't make out her words. I hear her knocking on something—something metal, close. My leg. She's tapping on my leg. I have to lift my head to look at her. My hands are clenched to my face—my ears, but the sound wasn't coming from outside. The room is not that dark, or that small, there's no one hanging from walls in here. This place smells of sweat, but not blood, not piss, not—not...

“Let's get you dressed some, huh, Blondie? I'm not getting in trouble for you freezing to death while I was trying to help you feel better.” She offers me a towel, and she has pants in the other hand, “Or I can do it?” she has a look. I can't place the expression right now. My brain doesn't want to work, “Really?” she says. That is disappointment. That one I know.

She waves the towel in front of my face. I take it from her. It's damp. It takes me a moment to remember I'm supposed to be mopping myself up. She smiles when I actually start to work and slips one pant leg over my left foot. Then she pats my right foot so that I lift it up and she can pull the other pant leg over it.

I don't want to get dressed the stupid white suits and the make up and the interviews all the questions and answers. It's all so annoying—the words and the comments and Caesar with his jarring laugh, have they programmed him like a robot too?

“Do I have to play you like a drum?” Johanna is in my face. How is she--?

Oh! Right. We're in Thir

“-teen. We're not in the Capitol. We're in Thirteen. We're not in the Capitol.”

“Yes, and you need to stand up now before your ass sticks to the floor. I'm not hauling you up by myself. _You're_ doing the lifting.” She leans over and puts one hand in my arm pit and I push off the ground and I'm up, unsteady but up. She stands nearby as I pull up the pants and get things situated. She's still naked. There are bruises and red marks on her shoulders and neck, fresh and bright, and other scars on her arms and legs, burns, gouges, deep cuts. They have to have been from the Capitol prison, something in my head tells me that after the games you're re-prettied, like my leg. They want you to look shiny and new. They don't want the horrors to show.

She twirls on the toe of her right foot, “Your turn,” she says, “Though I should probably have made you do that before you got your pants on, eh?”

“Sorry.”

“I could easily have put clothes on while you were staring off into space before,” she sticks her tongue out at me, “but turn, come on,” she waves at me turning her finger in a circle, “Come on.”

I do so. I haven't really looked at myself since I got back, I realize; but now is not the time. I've been too in and out already. Don't need to remember something painful and freaky. She is picking up clothes now. She tosses me a shirt which hits me in the face and chest. I pull it on.

“Didn't I have something else? Won't that tell them someone was in here?”

“I'm going to have words with people when I get out of here so that will tell them anyway...” she says, working her way into her own shirt, “I'm going to make _damn_ sure they don't drug you again.”

I find my way to the bed and sit down. The relief flowing through me made my legs even shakier and I feel the need to cry starting again. She lowers the bed so she can sit down next to me and puts a hand on my back. It feels a little tender.

“You okay?”

“Just grateful. At least if I'm in a fog I'll know it's just me,” I have to laugh a little, maybe I won't cry, “I hate being so numb. It's like being back there...”

“It's probably why you haven't been able to keep track of where you are,” she says, “Try to get some rest, okay? I'd like to think I wore you out some,” she nudges me and winks and then gets up off the bed.

I lay back and swing my left leg up. I don't know what the Capitol did but it doesn't seem to detach any more. Maybe it's to help me kill _her_ better. People here seem to be implying I shouldn't want to kill her but I can't be sure that I should trust her either. I put my arm into one of the straps and start to fasten.

“Seriously, Blondie?” Johanna says, putting her hand on to mine and stopping me, “I really don't think you need to do that. If you try to tell me you're a monster again I swear I'll slap you.”   
“That might just prove me right.”

“I think _we've_ proven I know how to take the assassin side of you.”

I chew that over, “I don't know how to take that word.”

“I think it's better than some other ones that have been thrown around. I'm not going to tell you what those are but it's definitely better than monster.”

“What's going to happen in the morning when people come in and see I'm not strapped in?”

“Prim's on shift. So it'll be fine. Why do you think we scheduled things how we did?” She pulls the strap all the way from the buckle and lifts out my hand, “I've got a person to confront and I'm not helping you fasten yourself in. Good night.”

 


	12. Art Therapy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken a little while. Got a little stuck again; and again thanks to Ryxl for helping with those knots. Essentially we RP dialogue back and forth until I get unstuck <3 'nii-chan.
> 
> Oh, yes, I made up the non-morphling drug name by combining the names of a couple of anti-psychotic medications (haloperidol and clorazipine). They're generally known for yucky side-effects like hallucinations, confusion, agitation and such like that which I figured would really, really kaibosh the work that they were actually trying to do with Peeta's recovery.

Is that someone walking? I'm vaguely awake but I don't look up at first because I want to assess.

“Peeta?” the query is nervous, but the voice is familiar, female. Safe. Internal monologue assures me. I'm safe. Thirteen. Safe? Prim. Safe, “What did you do?”

It must look strange to her. I'm not on the bed. I couldn't sleep. I tossed. I turned. The bed was uncomfortable. I took myself off it. I tried lying on the ground. I couldn't get comfortable there. I wound up threading my arms through the bars on the bed and sitting up. I finally fell asleep, facing the door in case someone came in. So, I would hear. So, I could prepare, or some part of me could, anyway, I suppose. In case it wasn't Prim, as promised; because it might all be wrong.

It might still be wrong.

Wrong.

I look up slowly.

It's Prim. It's Prim when I close my eyes and open them again. I un-thread my arms slowly. She kneels down by my side.

“What were you doing?” she asks, taking each arm in turn and inspecting them.

“I couldn't sleep.”

She sits back on her heels looking thoughtful, “Well, let's get you some breakfast then. Do you want to wash up first? I can bring a little water in as well.”

“Okay.”

She stands up and goes to the door wheeling out the cart that's by it.

I pull myself up using the bed and walk around the room again. There's the window that's not a window. That's where they show the stupid videos. There's the walls and a couple of cabinets and drawers. I'm debating whether I should try to open the drawer when Prim comes back in with a little cart again, a small bowl of water, a small towel and a bowl of the porridge/gruel and a slice of something that's supposed to be bread.

Right. No spoons in this room.

_Spoon. Ear._

I shudder.

“They say we might have a little bit of fruit soon, so it won't all be supplements. The greenhouse area is producing but also they should have the trains running if all goes well with Two,” Prim says.

This is the first I've heard of anything going on outside the walls of the room, “With...Two?”

Prim gives a slight smile, “What do you remember of the Districts?” she asks, “I don't want to overload you with information.”

“They—they would ask me about Seven a lot, and Eight—there was major trouble in Eight because of...” I feel my hands starting to tighten up and that redness crawling up my back, “Let's just not, right now,” I decide, “I don't...I don't...” I pick up the towel and put it in the water and ring it out, “Trains and food are good.”

“Yes,” Prim says, hastily, “Yes, they are. Let's just say a lot of the Districts are working with us now against the Capitol and Two is where the fight is at right now. How's that?”

I mop my face and the back of my neck, “That—that's good. Best of luck to them. May the odds be in their favor.” It's out before I really realize what I've said.

Prim laughs, “Good one. Eat your nutritious goop. I'll go see where Johanna is. She's officially in command of your care now. I've no idea what she said to Coin. I haven't seen her. I just got the message handed down to me from a very irritated Keller about an hour ago. “On the upside” he said “It'll save us on morphling and halozapine”. He's not completely off things. He's says he's going to be reading our, Johanna's and my reports, and checking in bi-weekly. In the mean time, if you want tonight, when I come on shift again, I can check in and give you sleep syrup, much less side effects and much less you sleeping in that painful position?”

I feel myself getting embarrassed, “It's not painful...”

She gives me a look, “Just because you're used to that sort of pain...”

I'm not sure what...

“We'll revisit that before I go off shift to attend lessons,” she says, “In the mean time eat. I have to go check where Johanna is, and I think we were going to move you one over so you can actually have a bathroom.”

 

I've eaten, cleaned myself again and washed out the bowl by the time Prim returns. Johanna is with her. She has a bag over her shoulder and the smell of...it's firewood, lingers about her.

“Hey, Blondie,” she says, “Ready to see your new digs?”

She and Prim take either arm and we walk a few paces down a faceless gray corridor under the stern and watchful eye of two guards one at each end and to a door with the number H-4 on it. I feel a beating in the back of my mouth at us being outside of the confines of the room, things might cave in on us. The H-4 door opens when Prim separates from us to put in her key card and she leads us inside. It's a similar room. Another window that is not a window and a bed, but this one has no straps, and has sheets and a pillow and a folded up blanket. There's a chair and a table and a cabinet lined up in front of the not window, and a small room to the left of us. Prim opens the door and shows the toilet, shower and sink.

“See,” she says, “No more cloths. You can bathe like a real person.”

“Are you sure?” I ask her, “I don't think I remember how.”

They both look at me for a moment.

“Was—was that a joke, Blondie?” Johanna asks after a moment, hand on her heart, “Did—did you just make a joke?” She makes a show of falling towards the bed, “Prim! Prim! Check me! I think I've died!”

“I think you're fine,” Prim rolls her eyes.

“I'm not fine,” Johanna retorts, “I'm a fucking genius. We have more proof.”

“Oh, geez,” Prim says, “I'm going to leave now. You do whatever it is you're going to do.”

Johanna waves at her as she closes the door, “Now you may have new digs but you're not able to leave them...” she says, sadly, “well, theoretically. You weren't supposed to be able to get out of the other one.”

“I didn't,” I point out, “I have no idea how that happened.”

“Yes, well...” she puts the bag down on the bed, “I thought we might do something different today. No tapes, of course. No worries there. No visitors,” she opens the bag, and pulls out something wrapped in cloth. The smell of fire wood becomes stronger and as she unwraps the cloth I see why. It's a bundle of charred sticks, about a dozen or so, thin.

_I suppose YOU know how to light a fire, lover boy._

_I do actually, give it here._

“What are those for?”

“They're for you,” she says, “I thought we could draw today. There's a whole wall over here,” she points to the blank wall in front of the bed, “or the floor over here,” she points to the corner behind the cabinet against that wall and going towards the wall of the bathroom, “anywhere you like. No spare paper and no paint at all in Thirteen, I'm told and I haven't been able to raid your house yet,” she pats me on the shoulder. 

“Right,” my brain is trying to grasp on to something, “but Twelve was destroyed. How can you raid my house?”

“They left Victor's Village intact,” she explains, “Your house, Haymitch's house, Katniss' house, and the empty houses. I think the dear president was trying to make a point of some sort. Though the official reason was for Capitol people to stay at when they went to assess damages. I really don't think anyone's actually been out there.”

I have a house? I try to conjure this up. With the whole bakery thing I had figured that's where I lived and it's destroyed along with the rest of the District. Johanna—she asked about something about picking things up yesterday, didn't she? I wasn't really following...things properly.

Still—surely I lived with the family at the bakery like Delly lived with her parents and...wait...brother, did she have a brother too? I should have asked her about him that would have been the polite thing to do, wouldn't it?

“You okay, Blondie?” Johanna asks.

“Yeah. I just—Delly. I think she has a brother, and her parents. I didn't ever ask about them I don't think.”

“You've not been yourself,” she says, “and there's a long way to go. She understands.” She offers me the stick again, “come over here. Take a load off your feet and just draw—see what comes up.”

“I don't know what,” I take the stick anyway, “I would draw.”

I follow her the few steps to the corner of the room. She has the bundle which she lays down next to her as she flops down. It feels like it should be more difficult for me to get down on the ground. I'm prepared for a protracted maneuver, bracing, moving carefully with my left leg, but as I start I realize that's not necessary. Things bend more easily than I thought.

“Alright?” she asks.

I nod, “My leg works differently to how I feel it should.”

“It does look pretty sleek,” she says.

I'm about to ask how, then I remember yesterday and what went on between her and...me, and the nakedness that entailed. I feel my cheeks heating up. My whole body even. She gets a strange smile. 

“I told you it's okay.”

“That's easy for you to say. I apparently have different ideas about these things.”

“Which would be a thing I would be more accepting of you getting hung up on _if_ you and I were the ones who had sex. We didn't.” 

“That's easy for you to say too.”

Johanna sighs, “Look, if I grabbed your hand and started punching myself, would that be you doing it?”

What kind of?

“No?”

She nods, “Right, it would be me using your body to do it. So, the assassin using your body to do things is only different because it's inside you where it's harder to see,” she puts a hand on my arm, “They hijacked you, split you somehow,  _it_ is  _not_ you and we are going to work on finding  _you_ again, okay?” 

“Okay,” I toy with the stick in my hand, looking at the floor.

“And if the assassin comes out, well, maybe I can get it to behave, this won't be the first time I've tamed something deadly.”

I don't know if I want to ask what that's about or exactly what she's meaning either. She's leaning down on the floor resting on her forearms. I'm more just sitting.

“Got any ideas?” she asks.

“No.”

She starts playing around with her stick, the charred end making black lines up and down, branching out. There's nothing I can think of to draw. Maybe that's it...thinking too much. It has to just flow. I close my eyes and breathe in. The scent of firewood brings up several different images all at once. A dark haired girl teasing me, but at the same time being mad that she can't light a fire. Groosling crackling. Crouching down to clean the ash out of the bottom of the bread oven before stacking the wood and kindling to start it again.

I lean over with the wood to start drawing but it doesn't feel like the right way to be doing this. I shift my position until it feels comfortable and wind up lying on my chest more like she's doing and start to work with the stick, but that's not right either.

“You alright?” Johanna asks.

“Just trying to get comfortable.” It's not thick enough like the chalk, to be working with the pencil size is more comfortable sitting down with a pad rested on my knee. I can see myself doing that, landscape whisking by out of the windows, where is that? Train. Maybe just my fingers? I rub the charcoal onto my fingers and smear some onto the tile, that does feel slightly better. The charcoal isn't quite the same texture of material I feel I used, but the motion is right for this position. I realize that Johanna has stopped drawing herself and is watching me, “Are _you_ alright?” I ask her.

“Sure,” she says, “You just had this _focus_.”

“Like I said, trying to get comfortable, remember how to do this...” I shake my head, “Does that make sense?”

“Perfectly.”

“Good,” because it doesn't quite to me. I push my fingers around on the floor a little. I feel like I'm just going to be making a nonsense mess. Smudges and then smears, things start to click though; more familiarity of movement. I suppose I should just go with it, allow the smudges and smears to keep forming, is that clouds? I add more charcoal to my fingers changing the layers on the clouds, and then shading beneath them slowly it stops being clouds and instead is hair around a forehead. Johanna shifts to my side instead of across from me, watching as I continue to smudge away and try to figure out exactly what I'm doing. It feels as though I'm just echoing something I've done before.

“That's something,” she says, as the smudges give way to a face, “how you get the cheekbones like that. I can't draw worth a shit. How do you manage to do that?”

“I'm not sure...it's just shadows, and lines,” I look over at her, “It just—it's light, and not light and I can just see her? I don't think I really knew her that much though...do you know her?”

Johanna shakes her head, “No,” she says, “I know who she was, but I...don't know if it'll be good to talk about it or not.”

“Keep it real. Wasn't that the whole thing?”

“I did come up with that, didn't I?” she leans back and then sits up more fully, “I'll say a few things and we'll move on, alright? I don't really _want_ to gloss over things but I was hoping we could try and pull on happier things? I kinda hoped drawing would be a fun thing for you, something enjoyable that would help you feel more...normal.”

“I don't think that's going to be possible.”

“Give it time,” she says, “Anyway. This girl is Rue. She was in the 74th games with you. You didn't really interact with her in the arena. With the way you are though I'm sure you knew her in the training center.”

“She looks very sweet,” I tell Johanna, “So, why do I feel like I was angry before when I drew her?”

Johanna sighs, “I'm really not the one who can give you accurate answers to those questions. I was mostly a spectator during 74 our tributes died on the first day. I know the circumstances of Rue's death made a lot of people very angry...” she sighs, again, “But I don't...that's probably going to get into a very big tangle of memories for you and there's no way I'm going to know enough to help you unknot it, and I don't think we've worked anywhere near long enough for you to get with the person who could, even if she was in the district...”

Realization.

“Yes,” Johanna says, “Exactly.”

“Lovely, because that's going to be a whole wellspring of truth.”

“Well, this is why we're not going there,” Johanna says, evenly, “Aside from the fact that she's not in the district right now.”

“Surely there have to be other people here who know what happened? Other people from our district? I'm not going to trust anything she says—you have to know that.”

Johanna puts a hand to her temple, “Blondie--” she starts and then stops, “who _would_ you trust?”

“What about...our mentor? Are they still alive?”

Johanna hesitates, “He is. I just don't know that'll be much better. Let's just...hold off on that until after I come back from my field trip, okay?”

“Fine.”

 


	13. The Peacock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for PTSD reactions, inferences of self-harm and injury.

I have been issued two sets of clothes and a two pairs of pants to wear at night and, of course, there's a dresser to keep them in. A nurse drops them off while Johanna and I are eating a roasted fish that she made somewhere on the surface and brought back down.

She tears pieces of flat bread and wraps it around chunks of fish and offers it to me. It's crispy and very rich in flavor compared to anything I've eaten in as long as I can remember. It's so much for a moment I feel my stomach might reject it. I go slowly and drink lots of water, still Johanna eats the at least twice as much as me. She advises me to save room because she has a small pouch of raspberries as well. They pop and taste so sweet in my mouth. I realize why the gruel was so odd to me. The Capitol would give us the salty paste and the gruel wasn't salty at all.

“So, tomorrow,” Johanna says, “I will be gone, right?”

“Right.” I feel like I should write this down.

“I was going to ask Finnick to come and work with you. I thought I would bring him down here before then though. So, I will be back. Finish the raspberries—if you can. Fruit is good for you.” She pats me on the head before she leaves.

I take one of the charcoal ended sticks and write on the wall by the dresser. I'm sure to see it in the morning when I get dressed.

Johanna in Twelve today. Finnick will be here.

Then I sit back on the bed and wait, eating a couple more raspberries.

Finnick. Annie's Finnick, Johanna had said she was held there with us in the Capitol but we hadn't known. I don't know what that really means though. Someone he cares about, I imagine. Finnick. Finnick.

He must have been in the 75th games with us if they took someone he cares about and someone Johanna knows from before. She wouldn't be bringing him here if she didn't trust him. She wouldn't be bringing him here if she didn't trust him, I point out to myself again. If I repeat it maybe I'll listen and maybe I'll stay clear and present.

 

The door beeps and then nothing happens. It beeps again, then there's a rapping at the door. What are they waiting for? Oh. I get up and cross to the door and open it.

“There we go,” Johanna says, “You get to let people in. This is _your_ room.”

There's a man with curly red blonde hair hanging back behind her a little, “Hey, Peeta,” he says giving a smile when he sees me studying him.

For a moment we're outside salt in the are and he's urgently showing me a gold bangle on his arm and urging me into water but then he's over me as I'm tingling, numb all over, light hurting my eyes.

_Oh, good. She'd be useless if you were dead, you know. You have to be alive or we'll never get her through this. She's what's important. Come on then, up and at 'em._

“Blondie?” Johanna asks as I back away from the door towards the safety of the bed.

Is this how it's going to be every time I see someone? Sugar cubes and tridents and burning?

“Yeah, it was a good call,” I hear, “but again, did you see me not going along with it?”

“Blondie--” I feel hands on my hands and I pull away but they pull back, “Well, hey it went this way and not the other.” Johanna is in front of me. When did I get down on the ground? “Hey--” she says, “What did you see? What was happening to you?”

“I—I—burning. There was burning, and claws, holding, holding so she could...and, agh, it's all a jumble.”

She pulls my hands down away from my face, “It's okay,” and holds them together with one hand.

_He wants to know all my secrets._

She runs her fingers over my hand after resting my own on my lap. I hear him crossing the room.

“Finnick's going to sit near you,” she says, “It's alright. You're safe. He's safe.”

Slowly, knees covered in teal fabric come into view.

“This is why I wanted to bring Finnick by before I left,” Johanna says, “I wasn't sure what you remembered of him, what they might have screwed around with...”

“You trust him.”

“Yes,” Johanna says, “I do. I told you in prison, remember. He wouldn't have hurt you. She wouldn't hurt you.”

My hands clench on my legs, “Yes, she would. She has.”

“Alright,” Johanna takes my hands, “but Finnick is safe.”

“I just want to help, like Johanna does. Ask me anything you want, okay?” he says. He offers a hand towards me but he doesn't touch me.

_He wants to know all my secrets._

Dragging ourselves along the ground into the pool, burning being pulled out of our limbs into the water. The screaming can't be helped. It's almost worse than the fog was in the first place. _Don't be a fool! If we go mad from thirst and turn on each other do you really think you'll be the one who survives? Has the spile arrived yet? Where's the spile? The monkeys...they'll get here and we'll be sunk—the poor morphling._

“The spile came in a parachute the first night of the games,” Finnick's voice sounds different than before, soft instead of harsh, “Monkeys came at us the next day, after the fog, after Mags...” when there's a hitch in his voice I look at him, searching his face for the blinding light, but everything is dim, faded, nothing hurts my eyes. I take his hand. It feels warm. The grip is gentle, no tenseness, no readiness to strike. _Not right now. Keep him in sight._

He shakes my hand, “Good to see you again, Peeta.”

“Finnick,” I manage.

“Finnick and I caught the fish we just ate,” Johanna says.

“Thanks,” I tell him, “It was...” what's the word? “tasty.”

“You're welcome.”

I lean back against the edge of the bed frame. Silence stretches through the room but the noise in my head continues. I don't like the way my head feels or the way my thoughts are bouncing off each other.

“You think you and Finnick are going to be okay tomorrow?” Johanna asks.

I pull myself to my feet and go back to my note.

Finnick is safe.

I add to the bottom of it.

“Hopefully,” I say, bracing myself on the dresser, “Everything is so jumbled right now I might as well be doped up again.”

“Don't you dare say that!” Johanna snaps, “It took a long time for them to get everything all fucked up in your head so unfortunately it's going to take a while to straighten it back out.”

“Don't push yourself,” Finnick says, standing up.

“I don't know _what_ to believe half the time,” I point out, turning back towards them, “sometimes I'm not even sure about you,” I tell Johanna, “and then I feel terrible.”

Johanna points to my left leg, “Did you master that all at once, or was it ups and downs?”

I'm not sure at first. Then it seems logical—what the answer would be. Bits and pieces come together, the thing with the stairs and the practice that we were talking about with Delly the other day, and the things I want to do with it now that don't seem to apply, differences in how you have to stand up from the floor, a cane, internal grumblings about ice and mud, and, “...no.”

“So, what makes you think this is going to be any different? Only instead of hurting and falling over, you're hurting and having things confused in your head.”

“Annie's said her head is her own worst enemy when she's been...lost,” Finnick says, “It's been five years for her, and it took months and months to make real good headway in the beginning so don't push yourself, like I said.”

Johanna comes to stand next to me, and carefully, gently puts a hand on my shoulder, “We'll let you get some rest, okay? Finnick will be here tomorrow morning, yes?”

“With bells on,” Finnick says.

Johanna gives him a look, but it's half mischievous.

“Bells is too much?” Finnick asks, “Should I just stick to ribbons?”   
_He's a peacock,_ “What about feathers?” I find myself asking.

“I'll have to see,” Finnick remarks, “Perhaps both—if you're lucky,” he winks as he and Johanna head towards the door.

I lean against the dresser and give him a nod, “Sure.”

 

The room is so empty now. I still have fish and raspberries left and but I think with it being smoked the fish should be okay until I'm hungry again, whenever that is. I wrap the raspberries back up in the fabric and the fish in the leaves Johanna had brought them in and thread the sticks back through to hold it together and put them at the back of the dresser.

I should actually shower. It's been a long time since I've been properly clean, I'm sure. I gather things and go into the bathroom. I have to prop the door open because I feel my heart pounding as I set my things down on the counter and then check for towels. I stand for a while leaning against the edge of the sink taking deep breaths. It's just a shower. Why am I so scared all of a sudden?

_Thirteen is safe. This is not the Capitol. This is not the Capitol. This is NOT the Capitol._

“This is not the Capitol,” I tell my reflection before I pull off my shirt and then pants and instinctively sit down on the toilet to take off my leg. Right, this is not _that_ leg. I was in water soaking out fog pain in this leg, wasn't I? 

Alright. 

I turn the water on and check the temperature. It's soon warm enough to climb in. Was that a noise? Thankfully I thought to prop the door open. No. No one is there. 

_This is not the Capitol. Thirteen is safe._

I start to wash myself. This is when I can really see scars: score marks on my chest, burns. I knew the bands on my wrists, of course, from the lengthy restraint, but deep gouges have healed on my side here...I put my hand to them. 

_You're not the only one who made new friends._

I can't catch myself when I slip, feeling her stabbing me with claws deep in my side. I wind up in the bottom of the shower. Snatches. Bone being pulled out of my leg, being stabbed into my chest—but there's no scar there. _What are the rebels planning for eight now?_

No. I'm in Thirteen. That was before. This is now. That is not happening. I scrabble for the railing and pull myself back up. Let's just get clean. Can't even enjoy a shower. What's wrong with me? I lean my forehead against the back wall for a moment. _Get it together._

That feels familiar too. A train? An apartment?

I hit my fist against the wall. When will things start to make sense?

Don't push, they say, but they're not stuck in here with all this—this—this...

I wind up at the bottom of the shower again. I can feel the water hitting against my back. It fluxes between comforting, painful and terrifying and I fight the urge to hit my head repeatedly against the stall wall.

Maybe if the water pounds on me long enough I'll mush into pulp and I'll just wash away.

Was that a noise? No. Nothing. There's no one else in here. I need to stop this though. This is nonsense and stupidity. I pull myself up and slam the shower into off, dry quickly. I'm putting pants on when there is a noise: the door beeping. Now what?

Prim is there with the cart again, “Meal time and check up,” she says, “Though I'm told you probably have something tastier left in here still,” she wheels the thing in and shoves it into the corner as though it's a child in trouble, “How was the shower?” she asks.

“It was different.”

“I bet,” she says, “Well, if you don't mind sitting on the bed I have to record your vitals for the evening. Did you want me to leave you some sleep syrup?”

“No!” it's a snap before I really realize, “No.” I amend, “Sorry. No.”

“It's alright,” she says, “I'm sure I'd feel the same way. I just wanted to offer. If you change your mind some time in the night there's a button here,” she points behind the bed to a small metal panel, “push it and it'll tell the station in the main ward.”

“Okay.”

She checks my eyes, ears, mouth, breathing, heart rate and notes things down on a screen that she pulls up on the window and then shuts it down again, “Johanna wanted me to check if there's anything you might have remembered about that you wanted us to look for when we're in Twelve?”

I shake my head.

“Well, if you do...”

“Button?”

She nods, “I'm sorry I can't stay. There's a transport coming in from Two,” she takes the covered bowl off the cart and puts it on the table by my bed and then leaves, “I hope you get some rest.”

“Me too.”

 


	14. Finnick in Charge

When Finnick arrives the next day I'm already awake. I'm not sure exactly how long I've been awake, telling time is not something I've done in a long while. I've had long enough to scrub Rue off the floor, which I feel guilty about, but I couldn't take looking at her any more while I was wandering the room stuck with my thoughts. In the end I started drawing on the wall instead. I took the one I can't see from the bed, the one across from the dresser which was reminding me that Finnick was safe and was coming today because Johanna was in Twelve. It seemed safest to use the one I can't regularly see to draw out the dark whirling things, everything is black lines with red fingernails, not that I have anything red but Johanna did say she was getting paint, right?

“You didn't tell me we were going shirtless today,” Finnick says when I open the door, “I couldn't find feathers or bells you should at least have told me that. Though I mean it doesn't take much to fix it,” he winks.

“I...just didn't get dressed yet.”

“Boring,” he says, coming into the room, “and I brought the equally boring, I mean, lovely, breakfast. I'm sure you're thrilled.”

“I still have raspberries.”

“Smart.”

I go wash the charcoal off my hands and where it turns out some has wound up on my forehead and put on the clothes that are still in the bathroom from yesterday's hasty retreat from the shower.

“And here I was going to match you,” Finnick shakes his head putting his arm back into the gray jumpsuit but he doesn't fasten it up. He's sat himself on the bed and pulled the table close and set the food tray down. I go and retrieve the pouch of raspberries, “Now, I have something for you,” he says, “but you have to promise not to stab me.”

I stop dead in my tracks then.

“Sorry,” he says, “bad taste,” but he pulls something out of his pocket, wrapped in a napkin, “ta-da!” a spoon.

I swallow and find myself chewing on my lip.

“I can take it back,” he says, “but I thought you might like to eat like a human being.”

I sit down on the bed across from him and carefully take the spoon, “No. I...thank you. I just...thank you.”

He gives me a smile but there's a hint of something else. Sadness? Why would he be sad?

I mash up some of the raspberries into the porridge-gruel and eat it, and push the remaining ones towards him. He takes a couple and tosses them in the air to catch them in his mouth as I stir up the gruel some more. It definitely tastes better with the raspberries.

“So, what do you feel like doing today?” Finnick asks, then he laughs, “You weren't expecting that question were you?”

I'd stopped chewing, spoon halfway back to the bowl from my mouth. I swallow and shake my head.

“There must be something you've been wanting to do.”

“Some time last night...I was half willing to slip away from my own mind if it meant I could get out of this room,” I admit, “...then I just sort of wanted to melt into a puddle.”

“Ah,” he says with the tone of someone who is mulling something over, “Now, I had heard that Delly was hoping to come by today depending on what her duties were handed down at. I've talked to Annie about visiting also but today she wasn't up to it.”

“That's okay.”

“Just give me a moment, alright? I want to check on something.” He springs up off the bed and goes towards the door, and is out of it almost before I can blink, code and scan and everything. I finish the bowl of food, rinse it in the sink along with the spoon and put them back on the table. Then I retrieve the pants I slept in from the bathroom and put them on the dresser. “Finnick is safe” the wall reminds me.

I'm fairly sure that Finnick has forgotten about me when he returns and tosses a wad of gray fabric at me. It's heavy, thick, and unfurls into a large fairly shapeless form, eventually I can make sense of arms and legs all attached—jumpsuit.

“Put that on,” he waves at me, “We're going out,” he says this as though it's the most normal thing in Panem. As though every day we leave the room together and go...down the market or something, “Stop staring at me like I grew another head and put it on.”

I do start pulling the jumpsuit on over my pants though.

“Hm,” Finnick says, after a moment, “I don't suppose they issued you socks and boots? I didn't think of that.”

“Why would they? I'm not to go anywhere.”

He pulls off one of his own and hands it to me, “Try this on.”

I do so. It slips on evenly.

“Alright,” he says, and takes the other shoe off, “Give me a few more minutes. I'll be back again,” and he's out of the door again.

I take the shoe off my right foot and finish putting on the jumpsuit. It's thick heavy material but very shapeless. I can hear a woman's voice in my head, strange accent, lamenting the shape, the lines, it's formless nature and lack of color. She would apparently find this such a tragedy. I have no idea who she is. I can almost see her though. I pick up one of the sticks of charcoal and try to puzzle her out onto the wall. I'm still working when Finnick beeps on the door to come back in. He's apparently had to beep three times before I answered.

“Do you need both socks?” he asks, “I wasn't sure, but I figured it was better to bring both.”

“I'm pretty sure.”

He tosses them to me, they separate in the air and I manage to barely grab one and then pick the other one up from the floor. He's wearing a different pair of boots and socks, so I sit down and put those socks on and the boots. My feet feel so heavy when I stand back up. Finnick braces me so I don't fall over, and when I walk towards the door I feel as though each step is taking twice as long and things must be echoing so loudly. For a moment I hear _her_ snapping at me in a forest for scaring everything away.

“Okay?” Finnick asks.

“No. What are we doing exactly?”

“We're leaving the room.”

“Is that okay?”

Finnick shrugs.

“People are going to see me...”

“Just keep on the inside of me against the wall. Keep your head down. It's not far to an elevator,” he says, “Oh, hey, is that that Effie woman?”

“That who?” He's pointing at the woman I had been working on when he came back, “I...”

“Ah,” he says, “Effie...Trinket that's it. The escort for Twelve. They assign a Capitol citizen to each district. They draw the names for the games and coordinate tributes schedules and things.”

“Hm. That's the type of person who wouldn't like these jumpsuits?”

Finnick laughs, “Oh, no! They'd think they were vile.”

“Then very probably it's her then. I was hearing her complaining about them in my head and...” I wave my hand towards the wall.

“Well done, then,” Finnick says, “but let's go,” he shakes his head, “Should have got you a hat. Anyway, just hunch down...” he waves a hand, “never mind, you're doing that anyway. Come on.”

I follow him towards the door as he keys the unlock code. I expect alarms as I follow him out of it, but nothing happens. I look around. It's those same gray corridors as before. We walk down the corridor and I keep between him and the wall, head down as instructed as we go quickly through the large room with beds. I can feel it in my chest, but I plow on keeping pace with Finnick. I don't realize I was holding my breath until I let it out. There are other rooms with doors that we've been walking by. Finnick stops suddenly, and while pushing buttons by the double doors in front of him motions for me to stand to one side where there's a slight indent that can somewhat block me from certain angles of view.

He moves closer to me, “Doing okay?”

“I guess.” If you don't count the feeling that everything's going to cave in on me, or that guards are going to come up at any moment and shoot me; but I keep that inside. Though the look on Finnick's face suggests he's reading that on me anyway. I jump when the elevator doors slide open. There are two people inside. Finnick guides me in anyway which makes me more nervous, putting me on the opposite side to before, away from them, in the back corner of the square box.

I don't like this box. I don't want to be in here. It's too small.

“It's fine. You're okay,” Finnick says, reaching for my arm and shielding me more with his body which makes it slightly worse.

I pull the arm back, reaching instead for the wall of the box. I want to run for the doors when they open. I hear the others getting off though and remember if they see me it will be worse than staying in this box which feels as though it's getting smaller by the minute. _Can't be in here._ No one else gets in and the doors close Finnick moves away from me, apologizing. _Too small. Must get out._ I slide down to the ground.

“I didn't want them to see you but you freaking out was making them look...”

“Sorry,” I mutter, “It's just too small. It's getting smaller...”

“It's not,” he tries to assure me, crouching down next to me, “and we'll be out soon. I promise we will. I didn't know you had a problem with closed spaces...I would have gone for the stairs but I thought with your leg. I remember how it was going through the jungle in the arena some times.”

“I don't...” I shake my head, “It's just...the box...” _Out. Out._ No. “I can feel it.”

“Feel what?”

I feel the need to claw at my head, the walls, Finnick, pulling...the redness rising.


	15. Above Ground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a little while. My K was here for the past two weeks and we've been working pretty solidly on our werewolves. I had little time for anything else; but now here we are again where I'll be working half the time on that and half the time on this :)
> 
> \---
> 
> Story related. I'm working on the premise that District Four is around California area.

No!

I can _Bang-Bang-Bang-Bang-Bu-Bu-Bang_ my fist against the box—elevator wall. That's what I should do, against my left leg, it's less loud but more thorough. It vibrates through me, pushes it back. Finnick shakes his head.

“I'm sorry. Johanna talked about that. She showed me the rhythm,” he reaches a hand towards me, “Are you okay to stand? We'll be getting off soon.” There's a strange twitch of a smile. He taps his foot, repeating the rhythm.

“That helps.” I take his hand and push the other against the wall of the elevator, and we get me to my feet, at his instruction I move behind him, and we file off the elevator as others get on.

I move to his side again as we walk around.

“It's actually a little easier to get by right now,” he says, “all the reconstruction after the bombing...before there was a guard. I'd have probably had to try and bribe, or maybe get you a red wig or something...but I really don't think you could pass for Annie,” he gives me a wink, “be interesting to have you try.”

“If you say so.”

“I can't really ask if you ever wondered about kissing me,” he winks again, “Though it hurts to think you wouldn't remember,” he puts a hand to his heart.

I shake my head.

He stops again at a small corridor and scans around, “Alright, just down here. You going to be okay. It's narrow.”

“I have no idea.”

“Fair enough.”

He sets off down it. I follow. I can feel the nerves, but in unison we knock on the corridor walls and that keeps things fairly straight. I can't help but hope I don't have to keep this up forever. I'm sure it's going to be annoying to a lot of people if I have to keep banging, tapping and otherwise making noise on things to keep focus at certain times.

After a little while the light shifts, it flickers and...dapples. I can feel warmth and smell. It's trees. It takes me a moment, and there are birds. Those are birds chittering to each other. Finnick steps to the side. To the left of us there are rocks, large piles, but above and to the right, trees, waving over head in the breeze. My eyes sting as I step out to follow Finnick and I have to put my hand up against it and even so it's hard to see for quite a while leaving the shade of the corridor. I feel the skin on my hand and face prickling. I take deep breaths, slowly though.

“Great, isn't it?” Finnick says, “Non-recycled air. I love it. Especially coming up here without having to do damn propos.”

_Think about what you're doing. They're turning you into a weapon._

“You okay?” he asks.

“Can we—can we walk?”

“Sure. Come on there's a path this way. Goes over to the water. We've got supplies stashed to fish and such. Not that you were much good at that.”

I follow up carefully up the slight incline full of white and gray rocks and crumbling, dusty rubble, as we climb up further I realize we're coming out of a crater onto normal ground level. Finnick offers me a hand and helps me up the last few inches so that I don't slip back down into the hole and then here we are on mud and grass and dirt. There's a familiarity about it which is both comforting and unsettling given I don't recognize anything at all. There are no buildings that I can see. It's just trees scattered about leading towards denser clusters which must be woods or forest, even. I remember Delly saying the forests were dangerous and Johanna saying that's just what we were told to keep us inside the district, but this is not Twelve, this is Thirteen.

There are small creatures moving around, brown with white and black stripes scuttling up and down the trees. I can see birds fluttering and hear them chirping and in some cases keening at each other alarmed that we're walking by. There are brown and yellow leaves on the ground around us and as we crunch through them I find myself feeling self-conscious and guilty for making too much noise, as though it will bring people upon us.

Finnick is talking about something but I can't make out what he's saying. He stops ahead for me to catch up, “I've heard tell it's a bit like Twelve,” he says, softly as we come out upon a sparkling body of water. I have to shade my eyes again. I suppose that's why things felt familiar but wrong, “Come this way there's part of a building. It's covered. Less eye strain. Plus that's where my fishing stuff is.”

I follow him to the left. We go under a canopy of trees. A small flock of birds takes off and flies over the lake, and we hear a plopping sound from the lake itself which he tells me is a fish jumping. He picks up a rock and tosses it into the water. It skips across the surface three times and then disappears with a final ploop.

A few more moments finds us in the shade of a half broken down building. The wall facing the water is completely gone. Finnick is pulling baskets from the water and I'm sitting, cross-legged on the floor, with my back against what remains of another wall, looking across at the shore on the other side: all the different colors of trees, a few heavy with flowers. It is much easier on the eyes to be sitting here. I can understand why Finnick decided we should walk this way. I can't feel as at ease as Finnick seems to be: people could easily show up soon and it will all be over.

“We're fine,” Finnick says, after a few moments of watching me, “No one patrols out here. They're all too busy.”

“What about The Capitol?”

“If they were going to come back after us they would have already. Do you remember how to build a fire? We can cook this stuff up.”

The snotty girl's voice comes back to me, “I think so.”

“Hop to it then,” he says, “I have a couple more baskets to check. Johanna's been using the back corner. It's got good wind shelter. Unless you can see somewhere better.”

“It looks good.” I pull myself up and cautiously move out of the back of the building. There are plenty of trees close by so I should be able to look for and find wood without going too far from the shelter and straying out of Finnick's range, though he doesn't seem too concerned. It doesn't take too long to gather enough wood and despite a scare with what happened to be a squirrel and nothing more everything is fine. I'm soon sitting in the corner, rearranging the stones that Johanna had piled around and arranging wood, leaves and moss. It's one of those things that just clicks into place, like the drawing did, and it feels comfortable, even if the position sometimes feels wrong, and that I should be doing this partially inside a...an almost box, rather than inside stones, it's the same thing. Then you take some of the moss and the wood and you whip them together until you get a spark and cradle it and get the rest of the fire going from there. Finnick has some sticks set aside perfect for balancing skewers of fish on over the flames and soon everything is cooking together.

We spend some time in quiet and then Finnick begins telling me about things in Four: the chain of islands that he and Annie would visit to relax. They're supposedly remains from a great “earth quake” that happened years and years before the last rebellion.

He talks also of the floating stage they have for ceremonies and how if he and Annie had being going to get married in Four it would have probably been on that stage. I can hear that woman again asking me something about a cane.

“Peeta?” Finnick asks.

“Sorry. I just—there was something about a cane and it annoyed me—that Effie lady.”

“Oh, good,” he says, “I mean, not that it was good she was annoying you, just I was asking you a question and I thought _I_ annoyed you should have known that couldn't be it,” he laughs, “because I never annoy anyone.”

I can't help but snort.

“Are you sure you don't remember anything?” he says, “because that seemed pretty natural.”

“You had a question.”

“Right. Annie and I were wondering if you were up to making our wedding cake. Really don't trust these idiots at Thirteen with something like that. They can barely make bread let alone a cake. Plutarch has managed to get an agreement from Coin for enough ingredients for maybe three or four tiers...I think...I'm not an actual baker.”

“I don't know if I am any more, but I got charcoal and I managed to start drawing, so maybe if I get into the kitchens...I'm honored you ask. I'll do my best. Perhaps there'll be enough I can do something small to practice with.”

He smiles and reaches to squeeze my hand, “Thank you.”

I want to say “no problem” but I can't so I just give him a slight smile and accept the piece of fish to eat before we have to return to the underground.

 


	16. Mentor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in update. I had K visiting for a couple of weeks and we were working on our werewolves, and then I was a little stuck because of the person in the scene, and I got to writing some SPN stuff which I'm going to blame K for also because I can. Anyway my muse has been a little scattered lately. Hopefully the now finished scene passes muster. 
> 
> I think there's some baking in our baker boy's future. 
> 
> Though how soon I will have that done I'm not sure. Normally I'm posting a chapter or so ahead of what I have written -- but as you might have realized that is not the case right now! 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who is patiently waiting and reading and liking, and particularly those of you who have been subscribing! 
> 
> ~Echo

 

I feel like being outside with Finnick wasn't real. It must have been some hallucination, mixed up from the games and Twelve, except Finnick brought a bough back with us and there it is propped up in the corner of the room with it's spiky needles and closed pine cones, filling the space with it's scent.

Johanna is appreciative when I let her in. She shakes her head, amused at the idea of Finnick's antics calling him a lucky, smarmy bastard. Her bag is stuffed with things today, more so than before. She takes it carefully to the bed and sets it down.

“Your house is very neat,” she remarks.

“Okay,” I answer.

“I get the impression you mostly lived downstairs though.”

I sigh, “I can't help you. Maybe if I could _see_ it.”

“I can't get you there. Sneaking you upstairs is one thing--”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

“Don't be like that, Blondie,” she snaps, “or I won't show you the treats I've brought.”

“I'm sorry I--”

“Stop apologizing!” she sighs, “You're allowed to be mad. I can't imagine not remembering—almost everything.” She tips the bag over and carefully pours things out onto the bed. There are tubes with different colored labels, books, a couple of boxes which clatter slightly as she moves things around, brushes of different thickness with wooden handles, “You have to partly thank Prim,” she says, “She told me where some of it was. I guess they used to go over to your place and eat some times and she would help put things away,” she pulls a vague sad smile, “Dinner trade between you, them and Haymitch, sort of.”

“Haymitch doesn't cook,” I say, “He just drinks.”

One of the black covered books is just blank white pages, but the other two partly filled. One is another with a black cover, the other brown and on the inside cover is notated: _Not for Capitol interviews_. I put it down for the moment. I feel like there should be another one.

“There you are.” Johanna says, “You remember him. Something wrong?”

“I—I,” I sit down and look at the black one again, “Maybe I'm wrong, but when I saw myself drawing before, I thought I was using a blue book—when I was on the train.”

“If you had one with you during the lead up to the 75th games. It would have probably been in the apartments,” Johanna says, “So, who knows where it is now. You're likely not wrong though.”

I put my hand on the book and debate opening it, “Thank you for getting all these things,” I tell her as I open one of the clacky boxes. It's got different colored sticks in it they feel slightly greasy to the touch. The other one is the same but unlike the first box where some are rounded, especially the blues, greens and purples, they're all still perfectly square and covered with a foamy sheet and a protective layer of something clear on the inside. I scramble for the name and come up with pastels. They were a gift, I think. I think. But that's all I can get. That and someone laughing, hiding their face behind that blue book. There's no note. Nothing to explain. I put them back together.

“Sure,” she says.

She's also brought the few items of clothing that were downstairs, because she figured that I liked and wore those rather than the “stuffy” things that were kept upstairs in the unused part of the house. One of the shirts feels so smooth I find myself sitting there rubbing it between my fingers for a while until she distracts me suggesting we put things away and decide what we'll do for the day.

First we just organize the things she brought: clothes in the drawers, shoes by the side of the dresser, along with the boots the Finnick gave me yesterday, and then the art supplies in the cabinet. I leave the books on the desk but I still can't bring myself to actually open them.  
We have some of the fish from the day before and I tell Johanna about Finnick's request for the cake. She warns me they'll want to station guards in the kitchen but she'll see what she can do about just having her, Finnick and Annie in there, the bride and groom will want approval on cake designs and things after all.  
She leaves me alone to get that done and to see about getting things sorted out with Haymitch as well, given that's now on my mind—well, both of our minds.

After a while I get the pastels back out to add the red I wanted to put in the picture I was working on the other night but the connection is no longer there.

I work on Miss Effie instead. She seems to need oranges and pinks mostly. She gets a hat too, with feathering, netting, beads, and a flower. Once I'm out of ornamentation to do I lay down on the bed and try to untangle things in my head about her, and then about anything, trying to find things that seem familiar, honest, right, but mostly I just wind up pissing myself off.

Then there's a door beep which rescues me. Johanna slips in quickly when I open it.

“So,” she says, “I tracked him down.”

“Him?”

“Haymitch,” she says, exasperated.

“Oh. Right.”

She looks towards the door, “He's out there. If you're not up to talking to him he'll understand and I can send him away 'til another time. Do you want to wait?”

“Wait?” I ask her, “For what? Some miracle switch that opens everything back up?”

“Fair enough,” she says and goes back out the door.

I leave it unlocked and go and sit on the bed. He follows her in. Dark hair, slightly curly. Dark complexion. I figure this is what Delly was talking about with “Seam look”. He looks slightly sallow though, and I feel he should be a little heavier, but I also remember Delly talking about the food rationing. He's stocky built. Knowing what I've been told of “our district” if he hadn't been a Victor he would have been a good build for the mine. When his eyes track me up and down he looks sad, apologetic, guilty? Rather than the sort of grimace he had when he first walked through the door.

“Hey, kid,” he says, softly, “Good to see you.”

“Thanks,” I answer, lacking anything else to say.

He moves to sit down in the desk chair and I watch him the whole way. Johanna takes station against the wall between us, closer to me.

“That's a good picture of Effie,” he says, waving a hand towards it, “Yeah, that's a good one,” he nods, scratching his chin, and then it comes, clutter of images and voices. Argument in full swing, dagger words back and forth, me and her, and him barging into it, telling us off, saying he expected better. _He started it this time!_  
She wouldn't have knocked.  
You'll make a good wife one day. 

“We okay, Blondie?” Johanna asks.

“Yes. Just...you know...” I wave a hand towards him.

He's sitting in the chair, more alert now, watching me, hands on his knees, leaning forward slightly. He looks to Johanna as she resumes her position against the wall, “Whenever you're ready,” he says to me.

I shake my head, “Ready? Are you expecting something?”

He leans back again and shakes his head, “Well, she punched me.”

“Johanna?”

“No,” he chuckles a little, “The other violent girl you've gotten yourself involved with. You sure know how to pick 'em, boy.”

Johanna glares at Haymitch.

“Katniss...punched you?” I ask him.

“Yes,” he rubs a hand around his jaw. I imagine this is where he was punched. Why would she be punching him?

“Why was she...?” I wonder if I should bother, but it's out already.

“She was upset about what happened to you.”

“Sure she was.”

Haymitch pulls a face.

Johanna puts up her hand, “We're working through memories in bit and pieces, right?” she looks at me, “You'd had things you wanted to ask Haymitch about though...different things, about the games, about the district?”

I sigh, “Yes. If you're willing to answer them?”

“I wouldn't be here if I wasn't.” Haymitch remarks.

We go through some things. That yes, Katniss and I would take turns checking up on him. That, yes, he had jokingly said I would be a good wife at some point because when I brought food to his place I would also bring plates, and silverware and everything else needed to serve the meal because there was generally nothing clean at Haymitch's place—this was between the 74th and 75th games when we thought we were just gearing up to be mentors ourselves, not tributes again.

That during the 74th I would have seen Rue during training. That he remembers a story of her stealing someone's knife and causing a fight, that she used to sneak after Katniss. That, no, I didn't spend any time with Rue in the arena, but I did draw a picture of her on the floor of the training center during the assessments of the 75th and it pissed off the judges.

“That's why you got a twelve.” Johanna says.

“What?”

“You and Katniss. Your scores before we went in you were both twelves. What did she do?”

“She hung an effigy of Seneca Crane.” Haymitch remarks, “The previous year's game maker,” he clarifies, “You guys swore up and down you didn't confer before doing those things.”

“I wouldn't know.”

“I know,” he says, softly, “But it _really_ pissed off the judges. They wanted you guys marked for death.”

“Weren't we already?” I ask, “From what I've been gathering?”

“We all were,” Johanna says, “But they really wanted you guys gone. The lethal lovers. The figure heads of the rebellion.”

“What figure heads?” I shake mine, “I know I don't remember much, but that doesn't...”

Johanna is looking at Haymitch, who looks uncomfortable. There's that guilt playing across his face again. I remember some of the tapes that were played. Me in the stupid Capitol suits, talking to Caesar angrily throwing Haymitch to the wolves saying I shouldn't have trusted him. All that talk of a plot that we weren't a part of, that was going on under our nose, Beetee and his wires and the sky exploding. Maybe I do know why she punched him. Maybe it messed with what she was trying to do.

“Because you both survived the first arena,” Johanna says, “It became a big thing, whether you really wanted it to or not. I know snippets I got from you when we were in jail, you said that you guys were trying desperately to fix things on the Victory Tour, Snow had you guys stuck between a rock and a hard place, appease the masses or we destroy everyone around you...”

Haymitch nods, “ _Both_ you and Katniss were very conflicted. I know they've fucked with your head a great deal, but believe me you've both been at the mercy of the Capitol and they've been threatening you both, long before they took you. She's not the enemy, Peeta.”

“ _If_ that's true. Why did she punch you? Why was I angry that you'd been lying to us? That doesn't feel like Capitol spew...”

Haymitch sighs, “I...I promised her that I would get you out of the arena and not her, of course I promised you that I would get her out of the arena and not you. I...I figured I could keep both promises because the rebellion,” he nods at Johanna, “We had the whole scheme set up to get _everyone_ Beetee, Wiress, Finnick, Chaff, Seeder, Johanna and the two of you out and to Thirteen, provided you were all alive come explosion time—even the morphlings to be honest, though we didn't have much hope for them making it through considering...but that was absolute best case scenario. Everyone knew that not everyone was going to survive the whole thing.”

“Everyone?” Johanna says, archly.

“Well, everyone except you and Katniss.”

I can feel my heart beating in my ears and I want to claw it out.

“She's not good at acting,” Haymitch continues, “and we couldn't—we couldn't trust you wouldn't tell her. It was the safest bet. You two would act normally and everyone else would operate around you. The baby bomb was still genius though.”

It's so loud.

“The..?” I manage, but I'm losing things. He played with us. He was our mentor and he played with us too, just like them. Just like the Capitol played with us. Played with me, “You bastard!”

“There it is,” he says.

I feel rather than see Johanna move to alert because I've leaped to my feet.

“We're a game to you too?”

“Let me have it.”

“That's what happened, isn't it? Why don't you answer me instead of just looking at me like that?”

He puts his hands up and gets nonchalantly out of his seat, “Nothing I say is going to change anything, kid. I can't take it back. I can't undo it and while we're trapped in this shitty bunker I can't even drink so I'm being pretty well punished. Be angry with me. That's fine. I deserve it. We're trying to make things right, and you got drug through the shit, and I'm sorry. The only way I can fix things is to answer anything I can, but no, you're not pieces of a game. We're fighting for our lives and our freedom here and we had to make some difficult calls to get that done.”

I feel strange now. I'm almost expecting to disappear but at the same time I want to crumble down or just have him hug me but I don't trust touching him; I might wake up and find I've snapped him in half.

“I'm going to go,” he says, “Let me know _if_ you do want to talk again.” He also seems to think better of touching me, hand stopping half way towards my shoulder and he lets himself out of the room.

Johanna watches him go and then turns to me, “How do you feel? Do you want to cry? Sleep?” she pauses for a moment and gets that devilish look, “Beat something up?”

“I don't know.”

“Let's just sit for a while then,” she suggests.

We curl up together against the wall, facing the cabinet and dresser, and she drums the rhythm against the side of my neck with one hand, while I hold her other in both of mine and breathe deeply the scent of the pine bough that Finnick and I picked yesterday, because we can do those things now. We're in Thirteen and we're safe. 


	17. Bread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....so hi....  
>  Yes, OMG I...well...it's me, again, nobody have a heart attack, please?   
> I hate that it's been so long. This chapter sat with blinking cursor somewhere in the middle of the poor cook gathering ingredients with Peeta for quite a while, obviously given how long it's been since I updated and then yesterday MJpt1 was on and this morning word-vomit.   
> So, we'll see if more happens. I hope it does because I don't like leaving people hanging with stories as long as it wound up being. It's not as if I haven't *been* writing in the mean time, it's just been the book that my sis and I are working on and things to do with SyFy's Haven (which I haven't posted here...it's on my DW because it's kinda AU) and yeah...ANYway...I hope it doesn't suck it's been so long...my poor Peeta-muse, and I'm SO sorry to anyone who is actually STILL subscribed that it's been SO very long. I saw the last update date and I was just OMG.

The kitchen is mostly empty of people. Only the technicians working on the venting system and one cook are in there when Johanna, Delly and the two guards bring me in. Johanna is pissed that we had to bring guards, but she wasn't able to negotiate that out. The higher-ups don't know that Finnick walked me out and nothing happened, and this is an “infinitely dangerous environment” as far as Keller is concerned given all the knives and other kitchen items I could start a war with. There was apparently a heated argument between him and Johanna in front of Coin about potential situations that might occur and the end result was that if there weren't guards with tranquilizing guns standing within 300 yards of me at all times there wouldn't be any me in the kitchens at all.

The kitchen is overly warm because of the lack of vents but we're stationed on the side where they are working they're just not on yet as we're not. Finnick and Annie aren't going to be down unless called to say that it's okay. Delly is holding one of my sketchbooks and two from a set of pencils that she got from Haymitch after he left my room ready for cake designs because she and Johanna have faith that will happen.

The head cook nervously works her way across the room towards us around one of the guards and stands next to Johanna, “So...” she says, “you're a baker?” she looks me up and down as though this is the opposite of everything that should be. Is she the only person in the nation who hasn't heard of this Girl on Fire and Baker's Boy crap? Of course, whether or not I can actually remember how to do any of this...

“I was raised as one,” seems a safe answer.

“We're hoping doing some work in the kitchen will help his memory straighten out some more,” Johanna fills in, “Activities that are practically second nature like me and axes,” she gives a devilish wink.

The cook looks slightly pale but then turns to me, “Bread then?”

“Alright,” I nod and follow her to the storage area where ingredients are kept trailed by our entourage. The room is larger than part of me was anticipating but then this place stores for what's essentially a city not just one little shop which is what I grew up in, right? And it produces all the “varied” meals that they eat not just one type. From things we've gone through District Twelve had a butcher's shop and other different types and a lot of families cooked their own meals it wasn't provided. Whereas most people here in Thirteen are fed on the other side of this wall in a sort of cafeteria situation where they have a semblance of selection.

She gets one of the all too familiar carts and starts loading things on to it as we walk through, and I look around making note of things that are there. Most everything is very plain and only what's necessary. I feel as though at least in Twelve we had more excitement in our food and this is why Prim was so excited about the prospect of food deliveries from the other districts.

“There,” she says, putting a jug of yellow liquid on the top of the cart and wiping her hands on a cloth on it.

I look over what she has, wheat flour, white flour, yeast, something looks amiss but I can't. The liquid is the wrong color. I pick it up.

“Everything alright, Peeta?” Johanna asks.

“This isn't--” I look down at it.

“What's wrong with the oil?” she asks.

Oil? That is not what my brain was expecting. Honey? That's—yes. Something rolls in: an ounce and a half of yeast added to nine cups warm water and a cup of honey make sure it's chuckling before you add fifteen cups white flour, then a half cup and a bit melted butter and another cup of honey. Six cups of whole wheat flour once the dough has proofed enough...

“Oil?” I shake my head, “No. Oil doesn't—no. Where's the butter? Do you have butter? Especially if there's a cake to be made later on there _has_ to be butter and honey. Honey for the bread, or sugar at the very least. You must have that? It helps activate the yeast and the bread tastes better overall too,” I find my hand going to my temple, “You just—no.”

I realize Johanna is laughing, and when I turn around Delly seems torn between doing the same and crying. She has a hand on Johanna's arm for support. The cook lady looks almost terrified though.

“I'm sorry,” I tell her, “It just...” I take a deep breath, “It explains _some_ about the way your bread tastes if all you've had is oil.”

“How—how much butter would you be talking?” she asks.

“We...would apparently make what I'm thinking about in batches that used a little over a half a cup during the mixing and then more to glaze before baking. There was only so much we could fit in the ovens at a time.”

Delly gives a small clap and when I turn again she looks self conscious and plays with the edge of the sketchbook.

“But it's not more than a cup of butter all told,” I finish.

“We can do that,” the cook says, “Honey though...I'm not sure. How much there?”

“Two cups; but it can be substituted for sugar just straight. We've...we had to do that before if it was a bad time for the bees. The honey was more important for the apothecary at times.”

“Alright,” the cook says, “I'll check for the other things. You take this out to the main room and I'll follow with whatever I find.”

“If you're sure,” I answer, taking hold of the cart and turning it around. I'm followed out to the kitchen station we started at and I begin examining the cabinets and drawers for the supplies we'll need. I find a saucepan to warm up the water for the yeast and honey or sugar and a couple of large mixing bowls. I'm only able to find about ten bread tins of varying sizes so I get out a few trays as well figuring I can make rolls or braided bread. It's very refreshing to actually be remembering things. It takes a moment before I realize that I’m beginning to feel lighter and there’s a weird rattling, which when Johanna puts a hand over mine and then the pans stop clicking together was my fault.

“Easy, Blondie,” she says.

“Are we going too fast?” Delly asks.

“Right now we can go as slow as we need,” she says, “Right? Nothing’s actually going yet.”

“Right,” I agree, “and...” no, too much. Too much, I drum my fingers against the counter and take a deep breath, “...with baking there’s a lot of time to wait. The—the yeast as to chuckle, the dough has to rise and then rise, and then...no, it doesn’t...it just bakes then, after you get it...oil...they were using oil. My mother would...”

“Probably shouldn’t go that way,” Johanna says.

“No, maybe not.”

“Oh!” Johanna turns, excited, as the cook returns with a metal jar clutched to her chest, “What do you have for us?”

Delly is helping me fill a pan with water and set things to heat on the stove so that the yeast will have a nice warm bath to activate in. There’s something in the back of my mind about the freshness of the yeast, and a young boy, older than me though having a minor freak out at being told that yeast was tiny little creatures that might come to life and creep into his bed and tickle him in his sleep.

“I got the sugar...” she says, cautiously, setting it with the rest of the things. I can feel her jump when Johanna whoops and applauds her but she doesn’t get bitten or hugged. She settles back to watch but doesn’t relax, neither do the guards standing nearby, if anything else they’ve moved slightly closer.

“They’re waiting for a bread attack,” Johanna remarks to Delly and she shakes her head in reply.

Not being able to find a lid I cover the pan with one of the flat trays for braided bread to help the water heat faster, and examine the sugar and flour, realizing it’s a habit ingrained to check for bugs, even though everything is so sterile down here there’s not much chance of that, and once we start to hear the water bubbling I take it off and pour it into the mixing bowl and wait for it to cool down a little bit while dissolving sugar into it.

“You should--” the cook starts.

“Let him,” Johanna replies, from where she’s sitting a little ways away on the counter top, “this is about him remembering what he used to do.”

“But you’re not...the yeast...” she explains before Johanna can hush her again.

“If the water’s too hot it’ll die, if the water’s too cold it won’t wake up right,” I answer. It’s one of those rote things, but I can still see the other boy wriggling away from someone’s fingers running up his legs, _hurry, hurry, the yeast bugs are coming!_ _The yeast bugs!  
__Oh, come on, now! We were just having fun._

When she doesn’t say anything to that, but make a little thinking noise.

“One way the bread won’t rise at all, and just sort of crack when you try to proof it, and the other...” I can feel things bubbling up in my own head, “you can still wake it up, warming the dough after and it’ll do different things to the flavor the yeast waking up after, it can make things more buttery, though...you lot haven’t been using butter, so...that explains _so_ much, and the crust is crunchier that way...but if you’re baking it too long as well, and...”

“Peeta,” I hear Delly, by my side, “You’re going off a bit--”

“Focus on your bread, huh, Blondie? Or your water’ll be too cold as well?”

“Right. Right,” I put a knuckle in to check it, just safe, scoop in the yeast and give it a little swish and then cover with the towel and put on the stove top but not right by the burner just close.

By the time the first batch of flour is measured out and checked for clumps everything should be fine. Yeast is definitely chuckling. I feel that was a Dad term more than a Mom one, and I have Delly scoop flour in while I mix it up by hand something else the Thirteen-Cook seems perturbed by even though I washed them again before hand. Hand-washing is also something that comes second nature. Any time you stop and do something out of the bowl you wash your hands before they go back in to the bowl, that was definitely something—beaten—in by Mom. _You don’t want to make anyone SICK. If they get SICK they won’t COME BACK._

But Thirteen being so sterile, everything is done with utensils. Flour all mixed in, back under the towel and onto the oven it goes, because the oven is heating now and warming, and that helps things rise, rise, rise.

Now it’s the half hour wait. Measure out the other flour, and there’s butter to be melted but that can wait for a bit, but they were right. I can feel things beginning to click together in my head. Other things to do with the bakery, and working in it as I was mixing the dough and working, and not just the bits and pieces about Mom and her Methods.

“We had little pastries? With fruit jam—when that was possible?”

“Yes,” Delly nods, and she has that look where she’s trying not to get too excited.

“But mostly it would be things like berry bread, and swirl bread, or sweet cakes? And well, this bread and grain bread?”

She nods again, and her hands are twitching but it’s not a threat. We’re safe here, and she’s safe. Delly will always be safe. It’s how she is. Delly is safe. It’s a different safe than Johanna. Johanna is safe, but she’s also pointy, because that is Johanna, but Delly is round and safe, she always has been even if she’s been angry.

“And meat pies, with onions and potatoes?”

She nods again, but it’s a little hesitant now. Oh, because of where the meat must have come from. Johanna slides closer down the counter. So, we’ll leave that then. Upset Delly not good. Stay good, Peeta.

“Fancy cakes like the wedding cake, that’s not an often thing? That’s not how weddings were in Twelve, though?” I can almost, almost see a party table in a building there, but I really, really don’t get wedding from it, that seems all tiny and private and little meal with a special tiny pastry thing just for the happy couple and no one else. I can see two of them coming in holding hands, snuggle close, pointing to just a little almost biscuit thing and asking if there was anyway to make it red swirled because that was her favorite color.

“That’s not how weddings are most places,” Johanna says, “but they want to show off for Snow. We’re alive and well and living large here in Thirteen. Look how awesome it is. We can throw fancy parties too. We’re not all gray and drab and boring!” She leans her head back so that she almost hits it on the wall, “We want our seven tiered cake and our--”

“Three,” Delly says, “I think Plutarch got it where he was allowed three, finally.”

Johanna sighs, “You know what I meant.”

“Three tiers?” I ask them.

They both nod.

“That’s still a lot to work with. I don’t know that I would have gotten that much to work with very often if at all.”

Delly shakes her head, “Not that I got shown at least. Do you want the book?”

I look at the clock. It gives me an excuse because nothing has hit me yet, “No. It’s butter melting time. Let’s move the dough so it doesn’t get over stimulated, and melt the butter and sugar together on the stove top. It’s a bustle again for a bit, butter melting, sugar being dissolved into it and then cooling a little so that hands aren’t burned while it’s mixed into the dough, which has ballooned up, quite obviously given the towel is no longer hanging down slightly into the bowl itself.

Johanna finds the act of beating the dough quite appealing, but says she’ll try that if we get allowed back into the kitchen again for a second, and just lets me go for this time. Soon enough the bowl has been greased with the last of the melted butter mixture and the dough is sitting in there again, covered with the towel and is on it’s last rise before it’s in the tins waiting to be baked, and then I take the sketchbook from Delly and go to a blank page and stare at it for a moment, but really this is Finnick and Annie’s cake and they’re not here, so I just write their names and instead stare at that.

I must have been to District Four during the tour but I know nothing of it and that would have taught me so little anyway. Johanna has at least known them more than I do through her years of being a Victor.

“So, tell me about the happy couple and District Four,” I tell her.

“Why?” there’s an old edge of suspicion creeping in.

“He needs ideas before he can draw and they’re not here,” Delly explains.

“Oh, right...” Johanna says, “I can see about getting them down...” she glances over to the guards but neither of them budge for the moment and she glowers, “Has he not been fine?”

“The part with the knives hasn’t happened yet,” one of them points out. Which they are right about. They were told that after this part I will be chopping the dough into sections and then rolling and dividing it between different tins and trays and things. They tried to get it that someone else would do the cutting but it was pointed out that I needed to be allowed to use these things to prove that I can be trusted.

“ _FINE_ ,” Johanna retorts. Then she turns to me, “Fishing. Boats. Fish. Nets. Shells. Waves. Ocean. I’m not sure how much of that you get out in Twelve. It’s much the same as Seven, I imagine. Trees. Trees. Grass and trees.”

Delly nods.

“You saw the river upstairs though?”

I nod, “I know what some things look like, and there’s recordings.”

Johanna nods, “I’m sure Beetee can get stuff for you,” she glances towards one of the corners of the room.

“She has such lovely red hair,” Delly remarks, “and he does use that trident in the games, but I don’t know you want to bring that up in the wedding.”

I shake my head, “but that’s up to bride and groom,” I make more notes on the paper, sketching also a few different variations of three tier sizes at the bottom of the page. Tall, short, square, round...a lot of it depends on how much ingredients they allot us too, as to how big the sections can be.

Speaking of sections. There’s cutting dough now, and putting it into the greased tins and then separating it into groups now and Johanna leaning closer as I roll it into strips and braid the loaves and lay them onto the trays, rolling the ends under and sealing them with butter that part surprises me, but again an automatic thing to do. We set the soon to be bread on the stove for a few moments to rise again before it goes in the oven to bake.

Johanna turns to the guards with her arms folded but somehow manages to look ready to spring, “Nobody died,” she says, “I’m _so_ surprised. Can you call Finnick and Annie down _now_?”


	18. The Baking Design

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't even begin to think how long it's been. If you're still here, kudos and thank you for being so patient. I apologize that I'm King or Martin-ing and making people wait years before the next bit. My personal life has been a lot more tumultuous in 2017 than I could have imagined and is just finally settling down.   
> I'm hoping that picking this back up will help my block in other areas. I miss writing. I do. But life...exploded.   
> Anyway, this must be the longest it's taken anyone to make some loaves of bread ever, but now it continues.

The bread is out of the oven. Several loaves are cooling, while one is kept apart for us to slice in a moment and sample. Finnick leads the way into the kitchen with Annie on his arm. She keeps tight against his body, watching the guards suspiciously, Finnick grips her arm more tightly and brushes her ear with his nose. I can see the sweet messages on his lips and for a moment he’s sitting by himself in front of a red curtain reading a poem earnestly to her at Caesar’s request.

“That is an amazing smell,” she enthuses after a moment.

“Peeta made bread,” Delly explains, “Is it good to cut yet?”

I look over the crust carefully and then I can see it in my head to press two fingers gently against the crust and test it for both texture and heat, “It should be.”

One of the guards has been edging closer looking very interested in the bread, and the cook from Thirteen is drumming her fingers on the counter. I cautiously reach for the knife not sure if I’ll be allowed. No one stops me. Johanna lets out a slightly gleeful chuckle as I slice the bread into even pieces, and the cook allows us some more butter to spread on each piece before we eat them, offering slices to the guards as well. The one who was edging closer takes one, the other gives him a doubtful look and refuses. Johanna snags the piece back and eats it in one mouthful with a smirk on her face towards the guard who didn’t take it.

I was my hands again, dry them and go back to the sketchbook that was set aside, and turn it around so the cake size and shape sketches are facing towards Annie and Finnick. Annie takes the book and lifts it up to look at it her hands are shaking slightly.

“What is this?” Finnick asks.

“I’m told you’re allowed three tiers,” I explain, “I’m not sure how much I’ll have to work with to make those three tiers but these are shapes that could be used, depending on which you like.”

Annie is tapping something on the book which I can’t make out. Finnick just nuzzles her ear with his nose. It’s like they fit into each other and help each other work.

“Round,” she says, with Finnick’s urging, “if that’s okay.”

“It’s your cake,” I point out, “I’m just making it, and that’s really the simplest part,” I add, given next is what the cake itself is going to look like, “What colors are we going to use? Is there a….” what’s the word? “theme you’d like to use?”

There’s a small pause where the two of them look at each other.

“I get the feeling that we’re going to have to get things approved by ‘on High’,” Finnick says, “But we were hoping for something that represented _us_ rather than District 13 or the games.”

Annie shudders. I can feel my own heart trying to speed up for a moment.

“Understandable,” Johanna says, “but bang goes my idea of pitching for an axe.”

Annie’s eyes widen but Finnick just gives her a long-suffering sort of look, “An axe, really?”

“I can make it work. I axe you to marry me,” she moves her hands like a banner is being unfurled.

Now Annie cracks up laughing. Delly has hidden her face in the counter with one arm over the top of her head. Finnick is shaking his head at Johanna who looks like she’s caught a prized rabbit.

“Anyway,” Finnick says, “No axes.”

“Spoilsport.”

“When you get married you can have all the axes you want on your cake.”

Johanna levels him a fierce look now, “Like that’s going to happen,” she says, sharply, before furrowing her face into a more pleasant expression, “Anyway, tell your designs to the artisan here so he can get to work on _your_ cake,” she leans back, stretching noisily.

“I don’t know what to say,” Annie remarks, “I’ve never done this before, and it’s just...” she waves her hands about in front of her and vaguely towards the pad.

“But Peeta has,” Delly says, and then looks like she regrets saying it, “I mean...before-before.”

“It’s okay,” I point out, “Thing are coming back to me—at least about baking bread they did, and I have been drawing so hopefully it’ll continue.”

“Well, it should represent us,” Finnick says, “Right?”

Annie nods, “It’s cliché but I always think of the ocean when I think of Finnick. When things got too bad back...back in four...we used to go to the beach, and just walk along the sand watching the waves, or sometimes go out on a boat and look for seals, being on top of the water—it was powerful. It helped given—given what happened,” she pulls her arms around herself and Finnick draws her close. I’ll have to work out what a seal is and how it looks. I write down notes of the key words though, and I can hear a swooshing even sound, back and forth, back and forth.

I start to draw what that makes me see, and look down to a sketch of curlicues and splashes.

“Waves, yes,” Annie coos, “That could—couldn’t it? I mean, go around the cake’s...um...walls?”

“Around the sides?”

“Is that even possible?” Annie asks.

“I’ve seen Peeta turn a cake top into a park scene, and make river beds,” Delly says, though it’s news to me, “You made one cake that was that _car_ they would only roll out during the...” and she trails off, “It was the Mayor’s, I think. So, I guess it was a commission from their house. Most of us couldn’t exactly afford a fancy cake, but if he was hosting tours or something then they would happen.” Her last sentence all the words are colliding with each other in the rush to get out of her mouth.

Johanna gets Delly a glass of water but instead of handing it to her pushes it across the counter top with one finger. Delly flushes as she drinks from the glass but I guess she’s right. The only person who would know the truth about what she said is me, given everyone else is dead. I can get a vague sense of sweet smell, a bit like when we made the solution for the yeast, but sweeter, stronger, and the idea of carefully pouring it into something, _sugar for glass_ , but other than that, nothing at the moment.

“Well, right now, the point is to sort out this cake,” I muster.

Johanna excuses Delly to go help her clean up the few dirty dishes that remain given the guards start on with the kitchen staff will need to come in soon and start preparing some meal or another, and they’ve been being kept out while I’m in here, which is both to their annoyance and benefit I suppose. Who knows when I might go nuclear and start stabbing people?

“You, okay, Peeta?” Finnick asks.

“Yeah.” We sketch out a few more ideas. Finnick describing the boats that Annie was talking about, and her talking about her favorite shells and birds that fly around the coast of District 4. I need to sketch the two of them, as well, but it would be better to do that later. Focus on this and then them later. This now.

“I can look up some of these things,” I tell them, “and draw out more ideas. We’ll have to find out exactly what we’re going to have access to as far as supplies too.”

Finnick nods, “I can see what people we know around and about have as far as pictures too, and get them to you.”

“Thank you, and we can go over what I have.”

“Yes.” Finnick nods.

Annie leans into his neck, “I’m actually getting excited,” she says.

“What do people wear to get married in four?” Delly asks, coming over, “Do you have...” and she trails off. I realize Johanna grabbed her arm suddenly and it made her stop.

Annie shakes her head a little, “I don’t have any fancy dresses here, none of us really do, but Katniss was really sweet and--” the entire room is red and pulsing.

Mutt.

Traitor.


	19. Red & Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta finds out some new things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get this up before the weekend because I work tomorrow and also because I'm in Florida, and I'm not sure what's going to happen after that. Even if we keep power we might not have internet access and so-on. 
> 
> In the mean time I hope that this is an okay chapter even if it's short.

Under the red there are pinpoints of noise. It’s a word. The word sounds familiar. There’s a substance to it but it won’t climb over the danger. The pitch is growing louder, but then a drum roll, and a bobbing face. _The axe and the peacock, play at eleven._

No.

Finnick. Johanna. They’re safe. We’re safe.

Annie and Delly are behind them. I’m scaring people again. It went bad. I won’t be able to come back here if it is bad, or if it is worse?

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” everything’s fading back to normal colors but I feel dizzy, really, “I’m sorry.”

“No. I’m sorry,” Annie says, from behind Finnick’s shoulder, “I shouldn’t have--”

“No. I have to be able to deal with i—her name. It just—I don’t know. I’m glad you’ll have a dress to wear. Finnick—maybe you can raid the….what was it...stuffy clothes upstairs?”

“The what?” Finnick asks.

“Oh!” Johanna says, “I brought Blondie some of his old clothes but there are ones from Capitol interviews and appearances still there. Posh suits and things.”

“I...imagine there’ll be several that coordinate...considering,” small steps, don’t choke, “and we’re in the same shoes—shoe size, so hopefully they’d fit.”

Finnick nudges me, softly, in the arm with his shoulder, “That’s great. Thanks,” Annie grabs his hand and squeezes. She looks about to say something but then stops and looks at Finnick. He kisses her on the nose. I feel both happy and dreadful about their closeness.

“We should get out of here though,” Johanna says, “Before they come in with brushes and shovels or something.”

“Right,” Annie says, “but you will?” she hesitates, “get in touch with things, if you’re okay with doing this.”

“It’s more than okay, and yes, somehow, perhaps sending a message via someone else if needed.”

Annie nods several times as Finnick guides her out of the room.

“Thank you,” Finnick adds, “Look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

I am sandwiched between Johanna and Delly as we go out. I realize Johanna has wrapped up the remainder of the bread in a couple of towels and is carrying it with her.

“You made it. It’s ours. I defy them to come after it,” she says, when she catches me looking at her bundle, “They’ll be the first person to be ki—knocked out by bread?”

“It’s far too soft to knock anyone out,” Delly chides, “The crust would crack if you tried.”

“Well, I’ll smother them with it then.”

“Waste of good bread,” Delly counters.

“Fine,” Johanna grumbles, “I’ll just strangle them with the towels. You catch the bread.”

  


Delly leaves us with a hug and a loaf of braided bread when we’re a floor away from my room. I recognize the path that went the opposite way to the elevator that Finnick and I took when we escaped to the surface. It makes sense that not every elevator has that ability. Keeps everything contained.

“How are you doing?” Johanna asks me once Delly is safely around the corner.

“I’m okay.”

“Really okay? Or just I’m going to say I’m okay so that the subject is dropped?”

“I...don’t know how to answer that question,” I tell her.

“You just did.”

I find myself confused at this and she just laughs, “It’s alright. It was a lot.”

“I screwed things up.”

“No,” she says, “You made bread. You talked shop. That was amazing considering not too long ago you were, frankly, a raving disoriented mess.”

“I thought you were going to say lunatic.”

“That would require what was going on to not be a credible response to all the shit we went through, and you had heaped on top of that.”

I chew that over for a moment but all I really come back to is _nope, lunatic._

“You don’t believe me,” she says, as we stop outside my not-so-much-cage room.

“It’s difficult,” I tell her, “Everything circles back around to lunatic.”

“Well, that’s a matter of fighting all the noise,” she says.

“Okay...” I don’t know how to do that though. There’s all the rattling of how horrible I am, and will be and could be, and then it echoes around the tones of that woman...who gave birth to me. All the snippets I ever seem to get from her is nastiness, and that brings me around to why did she even have me? But that’s things that I shouldn’t focus on either because the fact is that now she’s dead. All of them who knew me. Except Delly and _her_.

“You’re not fighting the noise, Blondie,” she says, as the door to my room opens, “That’s listening to it. I can tell.”

“I’m trying to...” _not trying hard enough though._ But then there’s this other bit I realize. Katniss offered Annie a dress. That means they spoke.

“What’s that look about?” Johanna asks. She’s piling the bread on to the top of the dresser.

“What look?”

“I’m not sure,” she says, “It looked one part not exactly horror but maybe creeped out? And then also struck with some brilliant idea, maybe? Some of your expressions are very confusing.”

“I am generally confused at the moment so maybe that’s why.”

“There you go with those jokes again,” she remarks, “Look at you, and also look at you avoiding the question in the first place which is what were you thinking about just before, in the noise, if you want clarification.”

“No...”

“No, what?” she asks.

“I meant I didn’t need clarification, exactly, I just...Annie must have spoken to Katniss; and I was just—is she here?”

Johanna seems hesitant. The first time I can recall seeing her that way.

“It’s not that hard of a question,” I point out, “Either yes or no.”

“I know,” she says, “It’s just what happened before.”

“Keep it real, right?”

“I should have known there’d be a time that might bite me in the ass,” she says, “but you’re right; and yes, she is here.”

I feel the punch to the chest but there’s no memory associated with it directly. Just that my body is aching. I sit down on the bed.

“How are we doing?” Johanna asks, arms folded and watching me intently.

“I’m not sure.”

“Fair enough.”

“She hasn’t been to see me,” I realize. Not that I would blame her. It was all fire and choking and pain.

“No.”

“I did try to kill her though.”

“Not exactly you, Blondie. We’ve been through this, and that’s not exactly the reason either...” her voice is trailing off into hesitation again, “...she was hurt in Two. She’s been in the hospital wing.”


End file.
